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aion.  and  anding  on  tha  last  paga  with  a  printad 
or  illuatratad  imprassion. 


Tha  last  racordad  frama  on  aach  microficha 
shall  contain  tha  symbol  -^  I  moaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  tha  symbol  V  (moaning  "END"), 
whichavar  applias. 

Maps,  platas,  charts,  ate.  may  ba  filmad  at 
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right  and  top  to  bonom,  as  many  frames  as 
required.  Tha  following  diagrams  illustrate  the 
method: 


Las  images  sulvantas  ont  M  raproduitas  avac  la 
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da  la  nattet*  da  I'examplaire  filmi.  et  en 
conformity  avac  laa  conditiena  du  centrat  da 
filmaga. 

Laa  axemplairaa  originaux  dont  la  couwerture  an 
papier  eat  imprimOa  sont  filmOs  an  commencant 
par  la  premier  plat  at  an  terminant  soit  par  la 
darniira  paga  qui  cempona  une  empreinte 
d'impraaaion  ou  d'illustration,  soit  par  la  second 
plat,  aalon  la  eaa.  Toua  laa  autraa  axemplairas 
originaux  aont  filmOa  an  commandant  par  la 
premiere  paga  qui  comporta  une  empreinte 
d'impreasion  ou  d'illustration  at  en  tarminant  par 
la  darniira  paga  qui  comporta  una  telle 
omprainta. 

Un  daa  symbolaa  suivants  apparaitra  sur  la 
darniira  image  da  cheque  microficha.  salon  la 
caa:  la  symbolo  — »  signifie  "A  SUIVRE".  la 
symbola  V  aignifia  "FIN". 

Laa  cartaa.  planchaa.  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  atra 
filmOs  A  daa  Mux  da  reduction  diffOrants. 
Lorsque  le  document  eat  trap  grand  pour  Atra 
reproduit  en  un  soul  clichO.  il  est  films  A  partir 
da  I'angia  supAriaur  gauche,  de  gauche  A  droite. 
et  de  haut  an  baa.  an  prenant  la  nombre 
d'imegea  nAcaaaaira.  Laa  diagrammea  suivants 
illustrant  la  mAthode. 


1 

2 

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MICROCOPY    RESOIUTION    TEST   CHART 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    7 


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1:25    ■  1.4 


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^     APPLIED  INA^GE 

■^—         >  ^'6)    "82  -  0300  -  Phrnp 
^S        (M6)   28«  -  5989  -  fax 


THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 


AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


i!^^ 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

MBW  VOBK   •   BOSTON  •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •   BOMBAY   -   CALCUTrA 
MILBOURNB 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TOIIONTO 


It 


Copyright  by  Arthur  I^  rto„  ,  p^^^  ^,^  p  ^^^ 

PRESIDENT  THEODORE  ROOSEVEU    IN   HIS  RIDING  COSTUME. 


/tt 


Theodore  Roosevelt 


AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


WITH  ILLVSTRATIOSS 


Ntto  gork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1919 

Ail  rights  reserved 


181632 


Copyright,  1913,  by  th*  Outlook  Company. 

CorvmcHT,  1913, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

S«t  up  and  clecirolypcd.     Publithcil  November,  ■913, 


J.  8.  CuNhlnif  Co.  —  Itfrwii'k  J(  Smith  Co. 
NorwotMl,  Mtt^s.,  I'.S.A. 


FORK  WORD 


NATURALLY',  there  are  chapters  of  my  autobiog- 
raphy which  cannot  now  be  written. 
It  seems  to  me  that,  for  the  nation  as  for  the 
individual,  what  is  most  important  is  to  insist  on 
the  vital  need  of  combining  certain  sets  of  qualities,  which 
separately  are  common  enough,  and,  alas,  useless  enough. 
Practical  efficiency  is  common,  and  lofty  idealism  not  un- 
common ;  it  is  the  combination  which  is  necessary,  and  the 
combination  is  rare.  Love  of  peace  is  common  among 
weak,  short-sighted,  timid,  and  lazy  persons;  and  on  the 
other  hand  courage  is  found  among  many  men  of  evil 
temper  and  bad  character.  Neither  quality  shall  by  itself 
avail.  Justice  among  the  nations  of  mankind,  and  the 
uplifting  of  humanity,  can  be  brought  about  only  by  those 
strong  and  daring  men  who  with  wisdom  love  peace,  but 
who  love  righteousness  more  than  peace.  Facing  the  im- 
mense complexity  of  modern  social  and  industrial  con- 
ditions, there  is  need  to  use  freely  and  unhesitatingly 
the  collective  power  of  all  of  us ;  and  yet  no  exercise  of 
collective  power  will  ever  avail  if  the  average  individual 
does  not  keep  his  or  her  sense  of  personal  duty,  initiative, 
and  responsibility.  There  is  need  to  develop  all  the  virtues 
that  have  the  state  for  their  sphere  of  action ;  but  these 
virtues  are  as  dust  in  a  windy  street  unless  back  of  them 
He  the  strong  and  tender  virtues  of  a  family  life  based 
on    the   love   of   the   one    man    for   the    one    woman    and 


VI 


FOREWORD 


on  thc.r  joyous  and  fearless  acceptance  of  their  common 
obl,gat.on  to  the  children  that  are  theirs.     There  muTbe 
he  keenest  sense  of  duty,  and  with  it  must  go    he  joy  of 
lu-,ng;    there  must  be  shame  at  the  thought  of  shirking'the 
hard  .ork  of  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time  delight  in 
the   many-s.de.'   beauty  of  life.     With   soul   of  flame  and 
temper  of  steel  we  must  act  as  our  coolest  judgrnent  Hds  us 
c  must  e.xercise  the  largest  charity  towards  the  wrong-doe; 
th       ,s  compatible  w,th  relentless  war  against  the  wrong- 
do  ng.     We  must  be  just  to  others,  generous  to  others    and 
ye    we  must  realize  that  it  is  a  shameful  and  a  wicked  [hng 
not   o  ^uthstand  oppression  with  high  heart  and  read,  hand' 
br  ve,f  T  d"'-^-^.  '"'   ^^'"^^'"^^'-   ^here   must  go   dauntless 
oe  i?     AH  f    '"■"",  ^^'"7^^"-  "f  '-l^"'-  and   hardship   and 
pcnl.     All  for  each,  and  each  for  all,  is  a  good  motto ;    but 
only  on  cond.tum  that  each  works  with  might  and  main 
-so  mamta.n  himself  as  not  to  be  a  burden  to  others 

Ue  of  the  great  modern  democracies  must  strive  unceas- 
2'y  to  make  our  several  countries  lands  in  which  a  poor 

aTd  -.rwhicT  ••  "'  ""  ''"'  ^^"^^"^^^•">'  -^^^  honestly 
and  n  wh.ch  a  nch  man  cannot  live  dishonestly  nor  in  sloth^ 
ful  avoidance  of  auty  ;  and  yet  we  must  judge  rich  man  and 
poor  man  alike  by  a  standard  which  reL  on  :o;du  d 

not  on  caste,  and  we  must  frown  with  the  same  stern  sever- 
ity on  the  mean  and  vicious  envy  which  hates  and  would 
plunder  a  man  because  he  is  well  off  and  on  the  brutal  and 
selfish  arrogance  which  looks  down  on  and  exploits  the  man 
with  whom  life  has  gone  hard. 

THEODORE   ROOSEVELT. 
Sagamork  Hill,  Oct.  i,  1913. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 


XI. 

XII. 
XIII. 
XIV. 

XV. 


Boyhood  and  Youth 

The  Vigor  of  Life 

Practical  Politics 

In  Cowboy  Land 

Applied  Idealism    . 

The  New  York  Police 

The  War  of  America  the  Unready 

The  New  York  Governorship     . 

Outdoors  and  Indoors  . 

The  Presidency;   Making  an  Old   Party  Pro 

gressive    .         .         .         _ 
The  Natural  Resources  of  the  Nation 
The  Big  Stick  and  the  Square  Deal 
Social  and  Industrial  Justice 
The  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  Panama  Canal 
The  Peace  of  Righteousness 


PAGE 
I 

32 

61 

103 

144 

I8S 
223 

293 
342 

379 

428 

462 

501 

543 

575 


«ii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Theodore  Roosevelt 


Frontispiece 


"My  father,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  was  the  best  man  I  ever 
knew" 

"My  mother,  Martha  Bulloch,  was  a  sweet,  gracious,  beauti- 
ful Southern  woman,  a  delightful  companion  and  beloved 
by  everybody  "... 

"  I  never  saw  Roswell  until  I  was  President "       . 

"Her  mother,  my  grandmother,  one  of  the  dearest  old  ladies 
lived  with  us "        .         .         .  ' 

"Two  Georgia  girls  "-Martha  Bulloch  and  Anna  Bulloch 
My  Uncle  Jimmy'  Bulloch  was  a  dear  old  retired  sea- 
captam  — a  veritable  Colonel  Newcome" 
"My  Uncle  Irvine  Bulloch  was  a  midshipman  on  the  Ala- 
bama, and  fired  the  last  gun  discharged  from  her  bat- 
teries m  the  fight  with  the  Kearsarge  "  . 
The  proprietor  of  the  "Roosevelt  Museum  of  Natural  His- 
tory"    .         .         .         _ 

"This,  and  subsequent  natural  histories,  were  written  down 
m  blank  books  in  simplified  spelling,  wholly  unpremedi- 
tated and  unscientific  "  . 

Presented  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  by  the  "  Tennis  Cabinet "" 
Any  man,  >f  he  chooses,  can  gradually  school  himself  so  as 
to  do  respec  ably  across  country  " 

The  Tennis  Cabinet      .         .  •        •         .        . 

"Once  I  invited  an  entire  class  of  officers  who  were  attend- 
ing ectures  at  the  War  College,  to  come  on  one  of  these 
walks  .... 

Joseph  Murray  as  he  looks  to-day 


PAGE 


9 
II 

14 
16 

18 


19 


24 


25 
32 

37 
44 


5.3 
66 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Michael  J.  Costello 

Theodore  Roosevelt  and  a  group  of  his  friends,  when  he  was' 

a  member  of  the  New  York  Legislature 
"  Reform  without  bloodshed  " 
President  Roosevelt   returning  from   the  great  bear  hunt 

Newcastle,  Colorado,  in  1905 
A  reunion      .... 

The  Elkhorn  ranch  house  and  the  deeds  of  purchase 
The  Cow-punchers        .... 
On  the  long  circle 

Sheriff  duty 

"Seth  Bullock  became,  and  has  ever  since  remained,  one  of 

my  stanchest  and  most  valued  friends  " 
The  Bronco  Buster,  by  Frederic  Remington 
Theodore  Roosevelt 
Mark  Hanna 
Matthew  Stanley  Quay 
Jacob  A.  Riis 
Otto  Raphael 

A  squad  of  mounted  police 
Captain  Edward  J.  Bourke 

Theodore  Roosevelt  and  the  children  of  the  tenement 
A  Spanish  cannon  on  the  lawn  at  Sagamore 
Mr.  Roosevelt  at  his  desk  when  Assistant  Secretary 

Navy 

The  Colonel  of  the  Rough  Riders 

Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  a  group  of  Rough  Riders 
General  Jc      ^    "heeler,  in  the  foreground.  Commander  o 
the  left  v,...^  of  the  army  before  San  Juan  Hill 

On  the  firing  line 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  Governor  of  New  York  State        '. 
"Mr.  Loeb  gave  me  much  information  about  various  im- 
proper practices  in  the  insurance  business" 
"I  got  Mr.  Perkins  to  serve  on  the  Palisade  Park  Commis- 
sion ...  to  save  the  Palisades  from  vandalism  "  . 


of  the 


PACS 

72 

79 
91 

102 

los 
III 
114 
121 
128 

134 
139 
144 
156 

»73 
186 
192 
200 
212 
219 
223 

229 

239 
246 

260 
272 
292 

312 
320 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


zi 


Father  Doyle  of  the  Paulist  Fathers 

Sagamore  Hill 

Theodore  Roosevelt  In  winter  riding  costume 

Under  the  porch  at  Sagamore 

Before  the  morning  ride  at  Sagamore 

From  the  summer  house  at  Sagamore 

Jack  and  his  master 

The  north  room  at  Sagamore 

The  mistress  of  Sagamore  Hill 

The  sixteen  cousins 

Bubbles         .... 

Daisies  •        .         .         . 

Josiah  and  his  master    . 

The  obstacle  race  around  the  old  barn 

The  small  boy  of  the  White  House 

The  first  grandchild  at  Sagamore  Hill 

President  Roosevelt 

The  White  House  from  the  garden 

Mrs.  Theodore  Roosevelt 

The  Rough  Rider 

The  soap-and-water  cure 

Rear  portico  —  the  White  House 

His  favorite  author 

The  Roosevelt  dam  in  Arizona 

The  Roosevelt  dam  irrigating  a  young  orchard 

Down  the  Mississippi    .         .         .         _ 

The  first  governors'  conference  at  the  WhitJ  House 

Palisades,  looking  toward  Slao  Rock  in  the  northeast 

rant  of  Crater-Crater,  National  Park,  Oregon 
Oscar  Straus 
Herbert  Knox  Smith     - 
William  H.  Moody 
Charles  J.  Bonaparte    . 
Paul  Morton 
James  R.  Garfield 


uad- 


PAGE 

343 
344 
346 
348 
353 
357 
359 
362 

36s 
367 
369 
371 
373 
374 
377 
380 

387 
392 
398 
410 
418 
424 

433 
442 
446 

450 

4: 

466 
470 
476 
4S1 
487 
490 


Ill 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Gifford  Pinchot  ...  '*" 

Father  Curran  ...*.****'  ^^ 

The  coal  miners •         .         .         .  509 

Breaker  boys •         •  5 

Medal  awarded  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  for  two  years'  continuous  "° 

service  on  the  Panama  Canal 

Colonel  G.  W.  Goethals         •■...'  l 

"  Kindred  spirits  of  the  strenuous  life  "  ccS 
Confiscated  by  the  Berlin  police.     What  are  they  afraid  of  ? 

I«  't  this  ?       . 

A  gate  at  the  upper  lock  at  Gatun ^^g 

Nobel  prize  diploma  in  case  .         .  l-,, 

n  .    •  •••••.     575 

reace  commission  at  Portsmouth  ....  eS± 

George  von   Lengerke    Meyer,  Ambassador   Extraordinary 

and  Plenipotentiary  to  Russia 587 

Ndbel  peace  prize  medallion -591 

The  fleet  in  the  Straits  of  Magellan       .         .         .         .         .594 
Senator  Lodee  ^i,^ 
President  Roosevelt  and  the  gun  pointers  of  the  U.  S.  bat- 
tleship Missouri ^q- 

The  return  of  the  fleet;  entering  Chesapeake  Bay         .         .     604 
Brass  Buddha ^^^ 


THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 


AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT 

AN     AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


CHAPTER  I 

BOYHOOD   AND    YOUTH 

MY  grandfather  on  my  father's  side  was  of  almost 
purely  Dutch  blood.  When  he  was  young  he 
still  spoke  some  Dutch,  and  Dutch  was  last  used 
XT  vr  ,  '"  ,  M*-'  ^''■^'^^"s  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  in 
i^ew  York  while  he  was  a  small  boy. 

About  1644  his  ancestor  Klaes  Alartensen  van  Roosevelt 
came  to  New  Amsterdam  as  a  "settler"  —  the  euphemistic 
name  for  an  immigrant  who  came  over  in  the  steerage  of  a 
sailing  ship  in  the  seventeenth  century  instead  of  the  steer- 
age of  a  steamer  in  the  nineteenth  century.  From  that 
time  for  the  next  seven  generations  from  father  to  son  every 
one  of  us  was  born  on  Manhattan  Island. 

My  father's  paternal  ancestors  were  of  Holland   stock- 
except  that  there  was  one  named  Waldron,  a  wheelwright' 
who  was  one  of  the  Pilgrims  who  remained  in  Holland  when 
the  others   came  over  to  found   Massachusetts,   and   who 
then  accompanied  the  Dutch  adventurers  to  New  Amster- 
dam.    My  father  s  mother  was  a  Pennsylvanian.     Her  for- 
bears had  come  to  Pennsylvania  with  William  Penn,  some 
in  the  same  ship  with  him ;   they  were  of  the  usual  type  of 
the  Jmrnigration  of  that  particular  place  r.nd  time.     They 
included  Welsh  and  English  Quakers,  an  Irishman,  -  with 
a  Celtic  name,  and  apparently  not  a  Quaker,  — and  peace- 
loving  Germans,  who  were  among  the  founders  of  German- 
town,  having  been  driven  from  their  Rhineland  homes  when 
the  armies  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  ravaged  the  Palatinate  • 


2    THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  — AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


and,  in  addition,  representatives  of  a  by-no-means  altogether 
peaceful  people,  the  Scotch  Irish,  who  came  to  Pennsylvania 
a  little  later,  early  in  the  eighteenth  century.  My  grand- 
mother was  a  woman  of  singular  sweetness  and  strength,  the 
keystone  of  the  arch  in  her  relations  with  her  husband  and 
sons.  Although  she  was  not  herself  Dutch,  it  was  she  who 
taught  me  the  only  Dutch  I  ever  knew,  a  baby  song  of  which 
the  first  line  ran,  "Trippe  troppa  tronjes."  I  always  remem- 
bered this,  and  when  I  was  in  East  Africa  it  proved  a  bond 
of  union  between  me  and  the  Boer  settlers,  not  a  few  of  whom 
knew  it,  although  at  first  they  always  had  difficulty  in  un- 
derstanding my  pronunciation  —  at  which  I  do  not  wonder. 
It  was  interesting  to  meet  these  men  whose  ancestors  had 
gone  to  the  Cape  about  the  time  that  mine  went  to  America 
two  centuries  and  a  half  previously,  and  to  find  that  the  de- 
scendants of  the  two  streams  of  emigrants  still  crooned  to 
their  children  some  at  least  of  the  same  nursery  songs. 

Of  my  great-grandfather  Roosevelt  and  his  family  life  a 
century  and  over  ago  I  know  little  beyond  what  is  implied 
in  some  of  his  books  that  have  come  down  to  me  —  the 
Letters  of  Junius,  a  biography  of  John  Paul  Jones,  Chief 
Justice  Marshall's  "Life  of  Washington."  They  seem  to 
indicate  that  his  library  was  less  interesting  than  that  of 
my  wife's  great-grandfather  at  the  same  time,  which  cer- 
tainly included  such  volumes  as  the  original  Edinburgh 
Review,  for  we  have  them  now  on  our  own  book-shelves. 
Of  my  grandfather  Roosevelt  my  most  vivid  childish  remi- 
niscence is  not  something  I  saw,  but  a  tale  that  was  told  me 
concerning  him.  In  his  boyhood  Sunday  was  as  dismal  a 
day  for  small  Calvinistic  children  of  Dutch  descent  as  if 
they  had  been  of  Puritan  or  Scotch  Covenanting  or  French 
Huguenot  descent  —  and  I  speak  as  one  proud  of  his  Hol- 
land, Huguenot,  and  Covenanting  ancestors,  and  proud  that 
the  blood  of  that  stark  Puritan  divine  Jonathan  Edwards 
flows  in  the  veins  of  his  children.  One  summer  afternoon, 
after  listening  to  an  unusually  long  Dutch  Reformed  sermon 
for  the  second  time  that  day,  my  grantWather,  a  small  boy, 
running  home  before  the  congregation  had  dispersed,  ran 
into  a  party  of  pigs,  which  then  wandered  free  in.  New 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

York's  streets      He  promptly  mounted  a  big  boar,  which  no 
he  SP'K.^°''"'^  and  carried  him  at  full  speed  through 
themidstof  the  outraged  congregation.  ^urougn 

down  t  ^^>r,' °"^  °f  '^^  Roosevelt  documents  which  came 
down  to  me  .1  ustrates  the  change  that  has  come  over  cur- 
iam aspects  o    public  life  since  the  time  which  pe  si  mists 

^vhic^^sl^nl,  after  the  closT^?;,::!Kev^±-^rS^: 


Thf  Statf  of  Snv  York,  to  John  Capf  q. 

To  a  Dinner  Given  by  Ffis  Excellency  the  Governor 
and  tounc.l  to  their  Excellencies  the  Minnister  of 
France  and  General  Washington  jk  Co.      ''"""'""   "' 

December 

To  120  dinners  at .     . 
'o  135  Bottles  Madira  . 
j6  ditto  Port       .     . 
60  ditto  English  Beer 
30  Bouls  Punch  .... 
8  dinners  for  Musiclc 
10  ditto  for  Sarvts  .     . 
60  Wine  Glasses  Broken  . 
8  Cutt  decanters  Broken 
Coffee  for  8  Gentlemen  . 
Music  fees  &ca 
Emit  &  Nuts    ... 


48 

54: 
10: 

9: 
9: 

1  : 

2  : 
4: 
.1: 
I  : 

K: 

5: 


O. 
16:0 

0:0 

0:0 
12:0 

0:0 
10:0 

0:0 
li  :o 

0:0 
0:0 


By  Cash 


.^156:  10:0 
100:16:0 


55 :  14  :o 
We  a  Committee  of  Council  having  examined  the 
above  account  do  certify  it   (amounting  to    one 
hundred    and    fifty-six    Pounds  ten   Shillings)   to 

December  17th  1783. 

Isaac  Roosevelt 
Jas.  Duane 
Egbt.  Benson 
Fred.  Jay 

Received  the  above  Contents  in  full 

New  York  17th  December  1783 

John  Cape 


4    THKODORK   ROOSLAKLT  -  AN   AITOBUX'.RAIMIV 

Think  of  the  Governor  of  Xcw  ^'ork  now  submittinK  such 
a  bill  for  such  an  entertainment  of  the  French  Ambassador 
and  the  President  of  the  L'nitcd  States  !  Falstaflf's  views  of 
the  proper  proportion  between  sack  and  bread  arc  borne  out 
by  the  proportion  between  the  number  of  bowls  of  punch 
and  bottles  of  port,  Madeira,  and  beer  consumed,  and  the 
"coffee  for  eijrht  gentlemen"  apparently  the  only  ones 
who  lasted  through  to  that  stage  of  the  dinner.  I'.specially 
admirable  is  tlie  nonciialant  manner  in  which,  obviously  as 
a  result  of  the  drinking  of  said  bottles  of  wine  and  bowls  of 
punch,  it  is  recorded  that  eight  cut-glass  decanters  and  sixty 
wine-glasses  were  broken. 

During  the  Revolution  some  of  my  forefathers,  North 
and  South,  served  respectably,  but  witliout  distinction,  in 
the  ami) ,  and  others  rendered  similar  service  in  the  Conti- 
nental Congress  or  in  various  local  legislatures.  By  that 
time  those  who  dwelt  in  the  North  were  for  the  most  part 
merchants,  and  those  who  dwelt  in  the  South,  planters. 

My  mother's  pef)ple  were  predominantly  of  Scotch,  but 
also  of  Huguenot  and  English,  descent.  She  was  a  (jeorgian, 
her  people  havingcometoCJeorgiafrom  South  Carolina  before 
the  Revolution.  Theoriginal  Bulloch  was  a  lad  from  nearCilas- 
gow,  who  came  hit  her  a  couple  of  centuries  ago,  just  as  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  needy,  enterprising  Scotchmen  have  gone  to 
the  four  quarters  of  the  globe  in  the  intervening  two  hun- 
dred years.  My  mother's  great-grandfather,  Archibald 
Bulloch,  was  the  first  Re\olutionary  "  I^resident"  of  (leorgia. 
My  grandfather,  her  father,  spent  the  winters  in  Savannah 
and  the  summers  at  Roswell,  in  the  Georgia  uplands  near 
Atlanta,  finally  making  Roswell  his  permanent  home.  He 
used  to  travel  thither  with  his  family  and  their  belongings 
in  his  own  carriage,  followed  by  a  baggage  wagon.  I  never 
saw  Roswell  until  I  was  President,  but  my  mother  told  me 
so  much  about  the  place  that  when  I  did  see  it  I  felt  as  if  I 
already  knew  every  nook  and  corner  of  it,  and  as  if  it  were 
haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  all  the  men  and  women  who  had 
lived  there.  I  do  not  mean  merely  my  own  family,  I  mean 
the  slaves.  My  mother  and  her  sister,  my  aunt,  used  to 
tell  us  children  all  kinds  of  stories  about  the  slaves.     One 


"MV   FATHEB,   TULUUUKl.   KuuoL'.  i_Ll,   W,\S  TUK   BKST  MAN   I  EVEK  KNEW." 


6    THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  -  AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  the  most  fascinating  referred  to  a  very  old  darky  called 
Bear  Bob,  because  in  the  early  days  of  settlement  he  had 
been  partially  scalped  by  a  black  bear.  Then  there  was 
Mom'  Grace,  who  was  for  a  time  my  mother's  nurse,  and 
whom  I  had  supposed  to  be  dead,  but  who  greeted  me  when 
I  did  come  to  Roswell,  very  respectable,  and  apparently 
with  years  of  life  before  her.  The  two  chief  personages  of 
the  drama  that  used  to  be  repeated  to  us  were  Daddy  Luke, 
the  Negro  overseer,  and  his  wife,  Mom'  Charlotte.  I  never 
saw  either  Daddy  Luke  or  Mom'  Charlotte,  but  I  inherited 
the  care  of  them  when  my  mother  died.  After  the  close  of 
the  war  they  resolutely  refused  to  be  emancipated  or  leave 
the  place.  The  only  demand  they  made  upon  us  was  enough 
money  annually  to  get  a  new  "critter,"  that  is,  a  mule. 
With  a  certain  lack  of  ingenuity  the  mule  was  reported  each 
Christmas  as  having  passed  away,  or  at  least  as  having 
become  so  infirm  as  to  necessitate  a  successor  —  a  solemn 
fiction  which  neither  deceived  nor  was  intended  to  deceive, 
but  which  furnished  a  gauge  for  the  size  of  the  Christmas 
gift. 

My  maternal  grandfather's  house  was  on  the  line  of  Sher- 
man's march  to  the  sea,  and  pretty  much  everything  in  it 
that  was  portable  was  taken  by  the  boys  in  blue,  including 
most  of  the  books  in  the  library.  When  I  was  President 
the  facts  about  my  ancestry  were  published,  and  a  former 
soldier  in  Sherman's  army  sent  me  back  one  of  the  books 
with  my  grandfather's  name  in  it.  It  was  a  little  copy  of 
the  poems  of  "Mr,  Gray"  —  an  eighteenth-century  edition 
printed  in  Glasgow. 

On  October  27,  1858,  I  was  born  at  No.  28  East  Twentieth 
Street,  New  York  City,  in  the  house  in  which  we  lived 
during  the  time  that  my  two  sisters  and  my  brother  and  I 
were  small  children.  It  was  furnished  in  the  canonical  taste 
of  the  New  York  which  George  William  Curtis  described  in 
the  Potiphar  Papers.  The  black  haircloth  furniture  in  the 
dining-room  scratched  the  bare  legs  of  the  children  when 
they  sat  on  it.  The  middle  room  was  a  library,  with  tables, 
chairs,  and  bookcases  of  gloomv  respectability.  It  was 
without  windows,  and  so  was  available  only  at  night.     The 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH  7 

front  room,  the  parlor,  seemed  to  us  children  to  be  a  room  of 
much  splendor,  but  was  open  for  general  use  only  on  Sunday 
evening  or  on  rare  occasions  when  there  were  parties.     The 
Sunday  evening  family  gathering  was  the  redeeming  feature 
in   a   day  which  otherwise   we  children   did   not  enjoy  — 
chiefly  because  we  were  all  of  us  made  to  wear  clean  clothes 
and  keep  neat.     The  ornaments  of  that  parlor  I  remember 
now,  including  the  gas  chandelier  decorated  with  a  great 
quantity  of  cut-glass  prisms.     These  prisms  struck  me  as 
possessing  peculiar  magnificence.     One  of  them  fell  off  one 
day,  and  I  hastily  grabbed  it  and  stowed  it  away,  passing 
several  days  of  furtive  delight  in  the  treasure,  a  delight 
always  alloyed  with  fear  that  I  would  be  found  out  and  con- 
victed of  larceny.     There  was  a  Swiss  wood-carving  repre- 
senting a  very  big  hunter  on  one  side  of  an  exceedingly 
sma     mountain,  and  a  herd  of  chamois,  disproportionately 
small  for  the  hunter  and  large  for  the  mountain,  just  across 
the  ridge.     This  always  fascinated  us ;    but  there  was  a 
small  chamois  kid  for  which  we  felt  agonies  lest  the  hunter 
might  come  on  it  and  kill  it.     There  was  also  a  Russian 
mouji.-.  drawing  a  gilt  sledge  on  a  piece  of  malachite.     Some 
one  mentioned  in  my  hearing  that  malachite  was  a  valuable 
marble.     1  his  fixed  in  my  mind  that  it  was  valuable  exactly 
as  diamonds  are  valuable.     I  accepted  that  moujik  as  a 
priceless  work  of  art,  and  it  was  not  until  I  was  well  in 
middle  age  that  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  was  mistaken. 

i\ow  and  then  we  children  were  taken  round  to  our  grand- 
father s  house ;  a  big  house  for  the  New  York  of  those  days,  on 
the  corner  of  Fourteenth  Street  and  Broadway,  fronting  Union 
5>quare  Inside  there  was  a  large  hall  running  up  to  the 
roof;  there  was  a  tessellated  black  and  white  marble  floor 
and  a  circular  staircase  round  the  sides  of  the  hall,  from  the 
top  floor  down.  We  children  much  admired  both  the  tessel- 
lated floor  and  the  circular  staircase.  I  think  we  were  right 
about  the  latter,  but  I  am  not  so  sure  as  to  the  tessellated 

The  summers  we  spent  in  the  country,  now  at  one  place, 
now  at  another.  \Ve  children,  of  course,  loved  the  coSntr^ 
beyond  anything.     We  disliked  the  city.     We  were  always 


8    THEODORE   ROOSE\ELT- AN   AUTOBI(X7RAPHY 

wildly  eager  to  get  to  the  country  when  spring  came,  and 
very  sad  when  in  the  late  fall  the  family  moved  back  to 
town.     In  the  country  we  of  course  had  all  kinds  of  pets  — 
cats,   dogs,   rabbits,   a   coon,   and   a   sorrel   Shetland   pony 
named  General  Grant.     When  my  younger  sister  first  heard 
of  the  real  General  Cirant,  by  the  way,  she  was  much  struck 
by  the  coincidence  that  some  one  should  have  given  him  the 
same  name  as  the  pony.     (Thirty  years  later  my  own  chil- 
dren had  their  pony  Grant.)      In  the  country  we  children 
ran  barefoot  much  of  the  time,  and  the  seasons  went  by  in 
a  round  of  uninterrupted  and  enthralling  pleasures  —  super- 
vising the  haying  and  harvesting,  picking  apples,  hunting 
frogs  successfully  and  woodchucks  unsuccessfully,  gathering 
hickory-nuts  and  chestnuts  for  sale  to  patient  parents,  build- 
mg  wigwams  in  the  woods,  and  sometimes  playing  Indians  in 
too  realistic  manner  by  staining  ourselves  (and  incidentally 
our    clothes)    in    liberal    fashion    with    poke-cherry    juice. 
Thanksgiving  was  an  appreciated  festival,  but  it  in  no  way 
came  up  to  Christmas.     Christmas  was  an  occasion  of  liter- 
ally delirious  joy.     In  tlie  evening  we  hung  up  our  stockings 
—  or  rather  the  biggest  stockings  we  could  borrow  from  the 
grown-ups  —  and  before  dawn  we  trooped  in  to  open  them 
while  sitting  on  father's  and  mother's  bed ;    and  the  bigger 
presents   were  arranged,   those   for  each   child   on   its  own 
table,  in  the  drawing-room,  the  doors  to  which  were  thrown 
open  after  breakfast.     I  never  knew  any  one  else  have  what 
seemed  to  me  such  attractive  Christmascs,  and  in  the  next 
generation   I  tried  to  reproduce  them  exactly  for  my  own 
children. 

My  father,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  was  the  best  man  I  ever 
knew.  He  combined  strength  and  courage  with  gentleness, 
tenderness,  and  great  unselfishness.  He  would  not  tolerate 
in  us  children  selfishness  or  cruelty,  idleness,  cowardice,  or 
untruthfulness.  As  we  grew  older  he  made  us  understand 
that  the  same  standard  of  clean  living  was  demanded  for 
the  boys  as  for  the  girls ;  that  what  was  wrong  in  a  woman 
could  not  be  right  in  a  man.  With  great  love  and  patience, 
and  the  most  understanding  sympathy  and  consideration, 
he  combined  insistence  on  discipline.     He  never  physically 


Mv  MOTHKR,    MAkltlA    Kll.L(Rll.    WAS   A   SWKKT,   OKACK.l  .s,     BKUTIFIX   SOUTHFBV 
WOMAN,   A  DELIGHTFUL  COMPANION  AND  BtLOVED  BY   EVtRVBODV." 


lo    THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


punished  me  but  once,  but  he  was  the  only  man  of  whom  I 
was  ever  really  afraid.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  was  a  wrong 
fear,  for  he  was  entirely  just,  and  we  children  adored  him. 
We  used  to  wait  in  the  library  in  the  evening  until  we  could 
hear  his  key  rattling  in  the  latch  of  the  front  hall,  and  then 
rush  out  to  greet  him ;  and  we  would  troop  into  his  room 
while  he  was  dressing,  to  stay  there  as  long  as  we  were  per- 
mitted, eagerly  examining  anything  which  came  out  of  his 
pockets  which  could  be  regarded  as  an  attractive  novelty. 
Every  child  has  fixed  in  his  memory  various  details  which 
strike  it  as  of  grave  importance.  The  trinkets  he  used  to 
keep  in  a  little  box  on  his  dressing-table  we  children  always 
used  to  speak  of  as  "treasures."  The  word,  and  some  of 
the  trinkets  themselves,  passed  on  to  the  next  generation. 
My  own  children,  when  small,  used  to  troop  into  :.-.■;  room 
while  I  was  dressing,  and  the  gradually  accumulating 
trinkets  in  the  "ditty-box"  —  the  gift  of  an  enlisted  man 
in  the  navy  —  always  excited  rapturous  joy.  On  occasions 
of  solemn  festivity  each  child  would  receive  a  trinket  for 
his  or  her  "very  own."  My  children,  by  the  way,  enjoyed 
one  pleasure  I  do  not  remember  enjoying  myself.  When  I 
came  back  from  riding,  the  child  v;ho  brought  the  bootjack 
would  itself  promptly  get  into  the  boots,  and  clump  up 
and  down  the  room  with  a  delightful  feeling  of  kinship  with 
Jack  of  the  seven-league  strides. 

The  punishing  incident  I  have  referred  to  happened  when 
I  was  four  years  old.  I  bit  my  elder  sister's  a.m.  I  do  not 
remember  biting  her  arm,  but  I  do  remember  running  down 
to  the  yard,  perfectly  conscious  that  I  had  committed  a 
crime.  From  the  yard  I  went  into  the  kitchen,  got  some 
dough  from  the  cook,  and  crawled  under  the  kitchen  table. 
In  a  minute  or  two  my  father  entered  from  the  yard  and 
asked  where  I  was.  The  warm-hearted  Irish  cook  had  a 
characteristic  contempt  for  "informers,"  but  although  she 
said  nothing  she  compromised  between  informing  and  her 
conscieinc  by  casting  a  look  under  the  table.  My  father 
immediately  dropped  on  all  fours  and  darted  for  me.  I 
feebly  heaved  the  dough  at  him,  and,  having  the  advantage 
of  him  because  I  could  stand  up  under  the  table,  got  a  fair 


12     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

start  for  the  stairs,  but  was  caught  halfway  up  them. 
The  punishment  that  ensued  fitted  the  crime,  and  I  hope  — 
and  beUeve  —  that  it  did  me  good. 

I  never  knew  any  one  who  got  greater  joy  out  of  living 
than  did  my  father,  or  any  one  who  more  whole-heartedly 
performed  every  duly;  and  no  one  whom  I  have  ever  met 
approached  his  combination  of  enjoyment  of  life  and  per- 
formance of  duty.  He  and  my  mother  were  given  to  a  hos- 
pitality that  at  that  time  was  associated  more  commonly 
with  southern  than  northern  households;  and,  especially 
in  their  later  years  when  they  had  moved  up  town,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Central  Park,  they  kept  a  charming,  open 
house. 

My  father  worked  hard  at  his  business,  for  he  died  when 
he  was  forty-six,  too  early  to  1  .ive  retired.  He  was  in- 
terested in  every  social  reform  movement,  and  he  did  an 
immense  amount  of  practical  charitable  work  himself.  He 
was  a  big,  powerful  man,  with  a  leonine  face,  and  his  heart 
filled  with  gentleness  for  those  who  needed  help  or  protec- 
tion, and  with  the  possibility  of  much  wrath  against  a  bully 
or  an  oppressor.  He  was  very  fond  of  riding  both  on  the 
road  and  across  the  country,  and  was  also  a  great  whip. 
He  usually  drove  four-in-hand,  or  else  a  spike  team,  that  is, 
a  pair  with  a  third  horse  in  the  lead.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
such  a  team  exists  now.  The  trap  that  he  drove  we  always 
called  the  high  phaeton.  The  wheels  turned  under  in  front. 
I  have  it  yet.  He  drove  long-tailed  horses,  harnessed  loose 
in  light  American  harnes  ,  so  tiiat  the  whole  rig  had  no  pos- 
sible resemblance  to  anything  that  would  be  seen  now.  My 
father  always  excelled  in  improving  every  spare  half-hour 
or  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  whether  for  work  or  enjoyment. 
Much  of  his  four-in-hand  driving  was  done  in  the  summer 
afternoons  when  he  would  come  out  on  the  train  from  his 
business  in  New  York.  My  mother  and  one  or  perhaps 
two  of  us  children  might  meet  him  at  the  station.  I  can 
see  him  now  getting  out  of  the  car  in  his  linen  duster,  jump- 
ing into  the  wagon,  and  instantly  driving  off  at  a  rattling 
pace,  the  duster  sometimes  bagging  like  a  balloon.  The 
four-in-hand,  as  can  be  gathered  from  the  above  description, 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


13 


did  not  in  any  way  in  his  eyes  represent  possible  pageantry. 
He  drove  it  because  he  liked  it.     He  was  always  preaching 
caution  to  his  boys,  but  in  this  respect  he  did  not  practice 
his  preaching  overmuch  himself;    and,  being  an  excellent 
whip,  he  liked  to  take  chances.     Generally  they  came  out 
all   right.     Occasionally  they   did   not;    but   he  was  even 
better  at  getting  out  of  a  scrape  than  into  it.     Once  when 
we  were  driving  into  New  York  late  at  night  the  leaders 
stopped.     He  flicked  them,  and  the  next  moment  we  could 
dimly  make  out  that  they  had  jumped.     It  then  appeared 
that  the  street  was  closed  and  that  a  board  had  been  p.aced 
across  it,   resting  on  two  barrels,  but  without  a  lantern. 
Over  this  board  the  leaders   had  jumped,   and  there  was 
considerable  excitement  before  we  got  the  board  taken  off 
the  barrels  and   resumed  our  way.     When   in  the  city  on 
Thanksgiving  or  Christmas,  my  father  was  very  apt  to  drive 
my  mother  and  a  couple  of  friends  up  to  the  racing  park  to 
take  lunch.     But  he  was  always  back  in  time  to  go  to  the 
dinner  at  the    Newsboys'   Lodging-House,   and    not    infre- 
quently also  to  Miss  Sattery's  Night  School  for  little  Italians. 
At  a  very  early  age  we  children  were  taken  with  him  and 
were  required  to  help.     He  was  a  stanch  friend  of  Charles 
Loring  Brace,  and  was  particularly  interested  in  the  News- 
boys' Lodging-Houscs  and  in  the  night  schools  and  in  get- 
ting the  children  off  the  streets  and  out  on  farms  in  the 
West.     When    I   was    President,   the   Governor  of  Alaska 
under  me,  Governor  Brady,  was  one  of  these  ex-newsboys 
who  had  been  sent  from  New  York  out  West  by  Mr.  Brace 
and  my  father.     My  father  was  greatly  interested  in  the 
societies  to  prevent  cruelty  to  children  and  cruelty  to  ani- 
mals.    On  Sundays  he  had  a  mission  class.     On  his  way  to 
it  he  used  to  drop  us  children  at  our  Sunday-school  in  Dr. 
Adams's   Presbyterian  Church  on  Madison   Square;    I  re- 
member hearing  my  aunt,  my  mother's  sister,  saying  that 
when  he  walked  along  with  us  children  he  always  reminded 
her   of   Greatheart    in    Bunyan.     Under    Jie    spur    of    his 
example   I    laugl-ct   a   mission  class   nivsclf  for   three  yea.s 
before  going  to  college  and  for  all  four  years  that  I  was  in 
college.     I  do  not  think  I  made  much  of  a  success  of  it.     But 


14    THEODORE  ROOSEVELT- AN  AUTOBIOC^RAPHY 

the  other  day  on  getting  out  of  a  taxi  in  New  York 
the  chauffeur  spoke  to  me  and  told  me  that  he  was  one 
ot  my  old  Sunday-school  pupils.  I  remembered  him 
well  and  was  much  pleased  to  find  that  he  was  an  ardent 
rJull  Mooser ! 

My  mother,  Alartha  Bulloch,  was  a  sweet,  gracious,  beau- 
tiful Southern  woman,  a  delightful  companion  and  beloved 

by  everybody.    She  was  en- 
tirely   "unreconstructed" 
to  the  day  of  her   death. 
Her    mother,    my    grand- 
mother, one  of  the  dearest 
of  old  ladies,  lived  with  us, 
and   was   distinctly   over- 
indulgent   to  us  children, 
being     quite     unable     to 
harden  her  heart  towards 
us  even  when  the  occasion 
demanded  it.   Towards  the 
close   of    the    Civil    War, 
although  a  very  small  boy, 
I  grew  to  have  a  partial 
but  alert  understanding  of 
the  fact   that   the   family 
were  not  one  in  their  views 
about    that    conflict,    my 
father  being  a  strong  Lin- 
coln Republican  ;  and  once, 
when  I  felt  that  I  had  been 
wronged  by  maternal  dis- 
cipline during  the  day,  I 
,  .  attempted   a  partial  ven- 

geance by  praying  with  loud  fervor  for  the  success  of  the  Union 
arms,  when  we  all  came  to  say  our  prayers  before  mv  mother  in 
the  evening.  She  was  not  only  a  most  devoted  r  Dther,  but 
was  also  blessed  with  a  strong  sense  of  humor,  and  she  was 
too  much  amused  to  punish  me;  but  T  was  warned  not  to 
repeat  the  offense,  under  penalty  of  my  father's  being  in- 
tormed  — he  being  the   dispenser  of   serious  punishment. 


"Her  mother,  my  grandmother,  one  of  the 
dearest  old  ladies,  lived  with  vs." 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


IS 


Morning  prayers  were  with  my  father.  We  used  to  stand 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  and  when  father  came  down  we 
called  out,  "I  speak  for  you  and  the  cubby-hole  too!" 
There  were  three  of  us  young  children,  and  we  used  to  sit 
with  father  on  the  sofa  while  he  conducted  morning  prayers. 
The  place  between  father  and  the  arm  of  the  sofa  we  called 
the  "cubby-hole."  The  child  who  got  that  place  we  re- 
garded as  especially  favored  both  in  comfort  and  somehow 
or  other  in  rank  and  title.  The  two  who  were  left  to  sit  on 
the  much  wider  expanse  of  sofa  on  the  other  side  of  father 
were  outsiders  for  the  time  being. 

My  aunt  Anna,  my  mother'a  sister,  lived  with  us.  She 
was  as  devoted  to  us  children  as  was  my  mother  herself 
and  we  were  equally  devoted  to  her  in  return.  She  taught 
us  our  lessons  while  we  were  little.  She  and  my  mother 
used  to  entertain  us  by  the  hour  with  tales  of  life  on  the 
Georgia  plantations ;  of  hunting  fox,  deer,  and  wildcat ;  of 
the  long-tailed  driving  horses,  Boone  and  Crockett,  and  of 
the  riding  horses,  one  of  which  was  named  Buena  Vista  in  a 
ht  of  patriotic  exaltation  during  the  Mexican  War;  and  r{ 
the  queer  goings-on  in  the  Negro  quarters.  She  knew  all 
the  Br  er  Rabbit  stones,  and  I  was  brought  up  on  them. 
Une  of  my  uncles,  Robert  Roosevelt,  was  much  struck  with 
them,  and  took  them  down  from  her  dictation,  publishing 
them  in  Harpers,  where  they  fell  flat.  This  was  a  good 
many  years  before  a  genius  arose  who  in  "Uncle  Remus" 
made  the  stories  immortal. 

My  mother's  two  brothers,  James  Dunwoodie  Bulloch 
and  Irvine  Bulloch,  came  to  visit  us  shortly  after  the 
close  of  the  war.  Both  came  under  assumed  names,  as 
they  were  among  the  Confederates  who  were  at  that  time 
exempted  from  the  amnest/  "Uncle  Jimmy"  Bulloch  was 
a  dear  old  retired  sea-captain,  utterly  unable  to  "get  on" 
in  the  worldly  sense  of  that  phrase,  as  valiant  and  simple 
and  upright  a  soul  as  ever  lived,  a  veritable  Colonel  New- 
come  He  vvas  an  Admiral  in  the  Confederate  navy,  and 
was  the  builder  of  the  famous  Confederate  war  vessel  Jla- 
bama.  My  uncle  Irvine  Bulloch  was  a  midshipman  on  the 
Alabama,  and  fired  the  last  gun  discharged  from  her  batteries 


l6    THKODORK   ROOSF'A  KLT-AN   AUTOBKXIRAPHY 

in  the  tight  with  tlic  Kfursarf:^,'.     Both  of  these  uncles  lived 
in  Liverpool  after  the  war. 

My  uncle  Jimmy  Bulloch  was  forgiving  and  just  in  refer- 
ence to  the  Inion  forces,  and  could  discuss  all  phases  of  the 
Civil  War  with  entire  fairness  and  generosity.  But  in  Kng- 
lish  politics  he  promptly  became  a  Tory  of  the  most  ultra- 
conservative  school.  Lincoln  and  (Irani  he  could  admire, 
but  he  would  not  listen  to  an_\  thing  in  faxor  of  Mr.  (Ilad- 


•     IWO    (iKOKlilA    ClKL.-,'  M\klllv    HlliOIH    AVI>    AnW    Hll.I.(l<  It 

Stone.  The  only  occasions  on  which  I  ever  shook  his  faith 
in  mc  were  when  I  would  venture  meekly  to  suggest  that 
some  of  tiie  manifestly  preposterous  falsehoods  about  Mr. 
Clladstone  could  not  be  true.  My  uncle  was  one  of  the  best 
men  I  have  ever  known,  and  when  I  have  sometimes  been 
tertipted  to  wonder  how  good  people  can  believe  of  me  the 
unjust  and  impossible  things  they  do  believe,  F  have  con- 
soled myself  by  thinking  of  L'ncle  Jimmy  Bulloch's  perfectly 
sincere  conviction  that  (Jladsione  was  a  inan  of  quite  excep- 
tional and  nameless  infamy  in  both  public  and  private  life. 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH  ,7 

who,,  I  w»s  ,  wry  s„,ail  ,xrs„„,  .„J  ..f  s    linrup„"S 

w  1'  T^'  p""'  .'""^''^  "^^'  ^^■''^'"  I  «'^«  -^mall.     At  one  time 

irttVoix/i.^"^'^'^"^-^-^'  ^  '-'^"^  -^'  -'-"^  "'--v-iier 

roDe'^' \/v''K'/.':i'  ^■""■'  "'^  '  '"^'^^'  "^>'  fi'-«t  journey  to  Eu- 
boys'  books  of  adv^-nt,  J,  j  r  V         ,"'  "*  ^""'^^  ^"^  other 


i8    THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPFiY 


as  that  seal  remained  there  I  haunted  the  neijjhborhtxjd  of 
the  market  day  after  day.  I  measured  it,  and  I  recall  that, 
not  havinjj  a  tape  measure,  I  had  to  do  my  best  to  get  its 
girth  with  a  folding  pocket  f(M)t-rule,  a  difficult  undertaking. 
I  carefully  made  a  record  of  the  utterly  useless  measurements, 

and  at  once  began  to  write 


natural  history  of  my 
•n,on  thestrengthof  that 
seal.  This,  and  subse- 
quent natural  histories, 
were  written  down  in  blank 
books  in  simplified  spelling, 
wholly  unpremeditated  and 
unscientific.  I  had  vague 
aspirations  of  in  some  way 
or  another  owning  and  pre- 
serving that  seal,  but  they 
nevergot  beyond  the  purely 
formless  stage.  I  think, 
however,  I  did  get  the 
seal's  skull,  and  with  two 
^^  my  cousins  promptly 
started  what  we  ambi- 
tiously called  the  "  Roose- 
velt \Iuseum  of  Natural 
History."  The  collections 
were  at  first  kept  in  my 
room,  until  a  rebellion  on 
the  part  of  the  chamber- 
maid received  the  approval 
of  the  higher  authorities 
of  the  household  and  the  collection  was  moved  up  to  a  kind 
of  bookcase  in  the  back  hall  upstairs.  It  was  the  ordinary 
small  boy's  c«jllection  of  curios,  quite  incongruous  and  en- 
tirely valueless  except  from  the  standpoint  of  the  boy 
himself.  My  father  and  mother  encouraged  me  warmly 
in  this,  as  they  always  did  in  anything  that  could  give 
me  wholesome  pleasure  or  help  to  develop  me. 
The  adventure  of  the  seal  and  the  novels  of  Mayne  Reid 


'My   Untik  Jmmy'  Briiiwii  was  a  ukar 

OLD     RKTIKKU     ShA-(MMXlN        A      VKKITABLK 
ColONKL   i\K'VC()4IK." 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTII  ,9 

together  strengthened   my   instinctive   interest    in   natural 
history.     I  was  too  young  to  understand  much  of  Maync 
Keid,  excepting  the  adventure  part  and  the  natural  history 
part  —  t  K-sc  enthralled  me.     But  of  course  my  reading  was 
not   wholly  confined   to  natural   history.     There  w.is   very 
httie  effort  nude  to  compel  me  to  read  bcxiks,  my  father  and 
mother  having  the  good  sense  not  to  trv  to  get  me  to  read 
anythmg  I  did  not  like,  un- 
less it  was  in  the  way  of 
study.       I    was  given   the 
chance  to  read  books  that 
they  thought   I   ought   to 
read,  but  if  I  did  not  like 
them    I    was    then    given 
some  other  good  book  that 
I    did    like.      There    were 

certain    books    that    were 

taboo.     For  instance,  I  was 

not  allowed  to  read  dime 

novels.      I  obtained   some 

surreptitiously  and  did  read 

them,  but  I  do  not  think 

that  the  enjoyment   rov-.- 

pensated  for  the  feeling  of 

guilt.     I  was  also  forbidden 

to    read    the  only  one  of 

Ouida's     books     which     I 

wished  to  read  —"Under 

Two  Flags."     I  did  read  it, 

nevertheless,    with   greedy 

and  fierce  hope  of  coming  on  something  unhealthy   but  as 

he?rto1n  dd'"  '''  P"^^^'^^^  1^''^'  have'sTemed  un! 
ov^;      T  °  ^"  °''^^r  P^";^?"  made  no  impression  on  me  what- 

adventurr'  '  '"^"^"'  '"  '  ^^^^"^  ^^"^"-'^  -^>^  ^he  generll 

the  cS Jili'nk^"^'''  '°  be  children's  books.  I  think  that 
a  child',  ho.^1  •  «';?"'"-"?  books  aL.,  and  T  ,'0  not  believe 
out  of  it  F  '•  T"^'  ^"^u^  "n'"^'^  grown-uj  ^et  something 
out  of  It.     For  mstance,  there  is  a  book  I  did  aot  have  when 


My  Untlk   Irvim;  Bi  ll(kh   was   a  mid- 
shipman ON  THE  Alabama,  and  riRtD  thk 

LAST  GUN   DISCHARGKD    FROM    HKR    BATTKR- 

lES  IN  THE  riGHi  WITH  THE  Kearsanr  " 


20    THKODORK   ROOSEVELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I  was  a  child  because  it  was  not  written.  It  is  Laura  E. 
Richc^rds's  "Nursery  Rhymes."  My  own  children  loved 
them  dearly,  and  their  mother  and  I  loved  them  almost 
equally;  the  delightfully  light-hearted  "Man  from  New 
Mexico  who  Lost  his  (Grandmother  out  in  the  Snow,"  the 
adventures  of  "The  Owl,  the  Kel,  and  the  Warming-Pan," 
and  the  extraordinary  genealogy  of  the  kangaroo  whose 
"father  was  a  whale  with  a  feather  in  his  tail  who  lived  in 
the  Greenland  sea,"  while  "his  mother  was  a  shark  who 
kept  very  dark  in  the  Cuilf  of  Carihee." 

As  a  small  boy  I  had  Our  Yomi^  folks,  which  I  then 
firmly  believed  to  be  the  very  best  magazine  in  the  world 
—  a  belief,  I  may  add,  which  I  have  kept  to  this  day  un- 
changed, for  I  seriously  doubt  if  any  magazine  for  old  or 
young  has  ever  surpassed  it.  Both'  my  wife  and  I  have 
the  bound  volumes  of  Our  }'ounfi  Folks  which  we  pre- 
served from  our  youth.  I  have  tried  to  read  again  the 
Ma>  lie  Reid  books  which  1  so  dearly  loved  as  a  bov,  only 
to  find,  alas  !  that  it  is  impossible.  But  I  really  believe 
that  I  enjoy  going  over  Our  Voufi^  Folks  now  nearly  as 
much  as  ever.     "Cast  Away  in  the  Cold,"  "Grandfather's 

Struggle  for  a  Homestead, Lhe  William  Henry  Letters" 

and  a  dozen  others  like  them  were  first-class,  good  healthy 
stories,  interesting  in  the  first  place,  and  in  the  next  place 
teaching  manliness,  decency,  and  good  conduct.  At  the 
cost  of  being  deemed  effeminate,  I  will  add  that  I  greatly 
liked  the  girls'  stories  "Pussy  Willow"  and  "A  Summer 
in  Leslie  Goldthwaite's  Life,"  just  as  I  worshiped  "Little 
Men"  and  "Little  Women"  and  "An  Old-Fashioned 
Girl." 

This  enjoyment  of  the  gentler  side  of  life  did  not  prevent 
my  reveling  in  such  tales  of  adventure  as  Ballantyne's 
stones,  or  Marryat's  "Midshipman  Easy."  I  suppose 
everybody  has  kinks  in  him,  and  even  as  a  child  there  were 
books  which  F  f)ught  to  have  liked  and  did  not.  For  in- 
stance, J  never  cared  at  all  for  the  first  part  of  "Robinson 
Crusoe"  (and  although  it  is  unquestionably  the  best  part, 
I  .lo  not  care  for  it  now} ;  whereas  the  .,ccond  part,  conlain- 
mg  the  adventures  of  Robinson  Cruso"   with  the  wolve^  in 


BOYHOOD   AND   YOUTH  21 

the  Pvrenecs,  and  out  in  the  Far  East,  simply  fascinated 
me  VVha,  !  did  hke  in  the  first  part  were  the  adventures 
be  ore  .  ru.s.,c  iir.allv  reached  his  island,  the  fight  with  the 
J^allee  f<(ner,  and  iIn  allusion  to  the  strange  beasts  at  night 
taking  li  rir  mipn  /.able  bath  in  the  ocean.  Thanks  to 
being  •.  ,vad\  un_  embryo  io61ogist,  I  disliked  the  "Swiss 
family  Robinson  because  of  the  whollv  impossible  collec- 
tion of  animals  met  by  that  worthy  faniilv  as  they  ambled 
inland  from  the  wreck.  Even  in  poetry  i{  was  the  relation 
ot  adventures  that  most  appealed  to  me  as  a  boy.  .\t  a 
pretty  early  age  I  began  to  read  certain  books  of  noetrv 
notably  Longfellow's  poem,  "The  Saga  of  King  Olaf,'' 
which  absorbed  me.  This  introduced  me  to  Scandinavian 
literature ;  and  I  have  never  lost  my  interest  in  and  afl^ection 
for  It. 

Among  my  first  books  was  a  volume  of  a  hopelessly  un- 
scientific kind  by  Mayne  Reid,  about  mammals,  illustrated 
with  pictures  no  more  artistic  than  but  quite  as  thrilling  as 
those  in  the  typical  school  geography.  When  my  father 
foiind  how  deeply  interested  I  was  in  this  not  very  accurate 
volume,  he  gave  me  a  little  book  by  J.  C;.  W  ood,  the  English 
writer  of  popular  books  on  natural  history,  and  then  a  larger 
one  of  his  called  "Homes  Without  Hands."  Both  of  these 
"^T.u     '""If^'n    P^''''''?"'-     They    were    studied    eagerly: 

?vl    ?h"^  '^vl'^'T'^'"'*  ^°  "'y  ^■'"'^'•^'"-     The  "Homes 
Uithout  Hands,     by  the  way,  grew  to  have  an  added  asso- 
ciation in  connection  with  a  pedagogical  failure  on  my  part 
In  accordance  with  what  I  believed  was  some  kind  of  modern 
theory  of  making  education  interesting  and  not  letting  it 
become  a  task    I  endeavored  to  teach  my  eldest  small  bov 
one  or  two  of  his  letters  from  the  title-page.     As  the  letter 
H      appeared  in  the  title  an  unusual  number  of  times    I 
selected  that  to  begin  on,  my  eflfort  being  to  keep  the  small 
boy  mterested,  not  to  let  him  realize  that  he  was  learning  a 
lesson,  and  to  convince  him  that  he  was  merely  having  a 
good  time.     Whether  it  was  the  theory  or  my  method  of 
applying  ,t  that  was  de  ective  I  do  not  know,  but  I  certainly 
absolutely  eradicatcxl  from  his  brain  any  ability  to  learn 
what     H     was  ;  and  long  after  he  had  learned  all  the  other 


22    THEODORE  ROOSEVELT- AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

letters  of  the  alphabet  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  he  proved 
wholly  unable  to  remember  "H"  under  any  circumstances. 
Quite  unknown  to  myself,  I  was,  while  a  boy,  under  a 
hopeless    disadvantage    in    studying    nature.     I    wua    very 
near-sighted,  so  that  the  only  things  I  could  study  were 
those  I  ran  against  or  stumbled  over.     When  I  was  about 
thirteen  I  was  allowed  to  take  lessons  in  taxidermy  from  a 
Air.  Bell,  a  tall,  clean-shaven,  white-haired  old  gentleman, 
as  straight  as  an  Indian,  who  had  been  a  companion  of 
Audubon's.     He  had  a  musty  little  shop,  somewhat  on  the 
order  of  xMr.  Venus's  shop  in  "Our  Mutual  Friend,"  a  little 
shop  in  which  he  had  done  very  valuable  work  for  science. 
This  "vocational  study,"  as  I  suppose  it  would  be  called  by 
modern  educators,  spurred  and  directed  my  interest  in  col- 
lecting specimens  for  mounting  and  preservation.     It  was 
this  summer  that  I  got  my  first  gun,  and  it  puzzled  me  to 
find  that  my  companions  seemed  to  see  things  to  shoot  at 
which  I  could  not  see  at  all.     One  day  they  read  aloud  an 
advertisement  in  huge  letters  on  a  distant  billboarc',  and  I 
then  realized  that  something  was  the  matter,  for  not  only 
was  I  unable  to  read  the  sign  but  I  could  not  even  see  the 
letters.     I  spoke  ol  this  to  my  father,  and  soon  afterwards 
got  my  first  pair  of  spectacles,  which  literally  opened  an 
entirely  new  world  to  me.     I  had  no  idea  how  beautiful  the 
world  was  until  I  got  those  spectacles.     I  had  been  a  clumsy 
and  awkward  little  boy,  and  while  much  of  my  clumsiness 
and  awkwardness  was  doubtless  due  to  general  characteris- 
tics, a  good  deal  of  it  was  due  to  the  fact  that  I  could  not 
see  and  yet  was  wholly  ignorant  that  I  was  not  seeing.     The 
recollection  of  this  experience  gives  me  a  keen  sympathy 
with  those  who  arc  trying  in  our  public  schools  and  else- 
where to  remove  the  physical  causes  of  deficiency  in  chil- 
dren, who  are  often  unjustly  blamed  for  being  obstinate  or 
unambitious,  or  mentally  stupid. 

This  same  summer,  too,  I  obtained  various  new  books 
on  mammals  and  birds,  including  the  publications  of  Spencer 
Baird  ior  instance,  and  made  an  industrious  book-study  of 
the  subject.  I  did  not  accomplish  much  in  outdoor  study 
because  I  did  not  get  spectacles  until  late  in  the  fall,  a  short 


BOYHOOD   AND  YOUTH  23 

time  before  I  started  with  the  rest  of  the  family  for  a  second 
trip  to  Europe.  We  were  living  at  Dobbs  Ferry,  on  the 
Hudson  My  gun  was  a  breech-loading,  nin-fire  double- 
barrel,  of  h  rench  manufacture.  It  was  an  excellent  gun  for 
a  clumsy  and  often  absent-minded  boy.  There  was  uo 
spring  to  open  it,  and  if  the  mechanism  became  rusty  it 
could  be  opened  with  a  brick  without  serious  damage 
When  the  cartridges  stuck  they  could  be  removed  in  the 
same  fashion.  If  they  were  loaded,  however,  the  result  was 
not  always  happy,  and  I  tattooed  mvself  with  partially  un- 
burned  grains  of  powder  more  than  once. 

When  I  was  fourteen  years  old,  in  the  winter  of  '72  and  '71 
I  visited  Europe  for  the  second  time,  and  this  trip  formed  a 
really  useful  part  of  my  education.     We  went  to  Egypt 
journeyed  up  the  Nile   traveled  through  the  Holy  Land  and 
part  of  Syria,  visited  Greece  and  Constantinople,   and  then 
we  children  spent  the  summer  in  a  German  family  in  Dres- 
den.     My  first  real  collecting  as  a  student  of  natural  history 
was  done  in  Egypt  during  this  journey.     By  t'  ^  time  I  had 
a  good  working  knowledge  of  American  bird  :    a  from  the 
superficially  scientific  standpoint.     I  had  no  knowledge  of 
the  ornithology  of  Egypt,  but  I  picked  up  in  Cairo  a  book 
by  an  hnghsh  clergyman,  whose  name  I  have  now  forgotten 
who  described  a  trip  up  the  Nile,  and  in  an  appendix  to  his 
volume  gave  an  account  of  his  bird  collection.     I  wUh  I 
could  remember  the  name  of  the  author  now,  for  I  owe  that 
book  very  much.     Without  it  I  should  have  been  collect- 
ing entirely  in  the  dark,  whereas  with  its  aid  I  could  generally 
find  out  what  the  birds  were.     My  first  knowledge  of  Latin 
was  obtained  by    earning  the  scientific  names  of  the  birds 
and  niammals  which  I  collected  and  classified  by  the  aid  of 
such  books  as  this  one. 

.Jh  ^"^'i  ^  obtained  up  the  Nile  and  in  Palestine  repre- 
sented merely  the  usual  boy's  collection.  Some  years  after- 
ward  I  gave  them,  together  with  the  other  ornithological 
specimens  I  had  gathered,  to  the  Smithsonian  Institutio^fn 
Washington  and  I  think  some  of  them  also  to  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York.  I  am  toTd  ha 
the  skms  are  to  be  found  yet  in  both  places  and  in  other 


24    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT- AX   A        )BIO(^.RAPHY 

public  collections.  I  doubt  whether  they  have  my  original 
labels  on  them.  W.th  great  pride  the  directors  of^hc 
Roosevelt  Museum,  consisting  of  mvself  and  the  two 
cousins  aforesaid,  had  printed  a  set  of  Roosevelt  Museum 
labels  ,n  pmk  ink  preliminary  to  what  was  regarded  as  mv 
adventurous  trip  to  Egypt.  This  bird-collecting  gave  what 
was  really  the  chief  zest  to  my  Nile  journey.^  I  was  old 
enough  and  had  read  enough  to  enjoy  the  temples  and  the 

desert  scenery  and  the  gen- 
eral   feeling    of    romance; 
but  this  in  time  would  have 
palled  if  I  had  not  also  had 
the  serious  work  of  collect- 
ing and  preparing  my  speci- 
mens.    Doubtless  the  fam- 
ily had   their  moments  of 
suffering  —  especially    on 
one  occasion  when  a  well- 
meaning    maid    extracted 
from  my  taxidermist's  out- 
fit    the     old     tooth-brush 
with  which    I   put  on  the 
skins    the    arsenical    soap 
necessary  for  their  preser- 
vation,   partially    washed 
it,  and  left  it  with  the  rest 
of  my  wash  kit  for  my  own 
,.,,-,  .       ,  ,       .     personal   use.       I   suppose 

that  all  growing  boys  tend  to  be  grubbv;  but  the  ornitho- 
logical   small    boy,  or   indeed    the   bov  with  the   taste  for 

ot  all.     An  added  element  in  m\-  case  was  the  fact  that  while 
n  Egypt  I  suddenly  started  to  grow.     As  there  were  no 

new  outfit.  But  there  was  one  suit  of  clothes  too  good  to 
throw  away,  winch  we  kept  for  a  "change,"  and  which 
was  known  as  my  "Smike  suit,"  because  if  left  mv  wrists 
and  ankus  as  bare  as  those  of  poor  Smike  himself.  ' 

When  we  reached  Dresden  we  younger  children  were  left 


Thk  propriktor  of  thk  "Kooskvut  Me- 

SKIM   OF    Xati  RAI,   HiSTORV  " 

Theoilore  Roosivtlt  at  the  a»;c  nf  ti'n. 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH 


as 


to  spend  the  summer  in  the  house  of  Herr  Minckwitz  a 
member  of  e.ther  the  Municipal  or  the  Saxon  Govt  nm^nt 
—  I  have  forgotten  which.  It  was  hoped  that  in  this  wTJ 
we  would  acquire  some  knowledge  of  the  German  lanlZl 
and  literature.     They  were  the  very  kindest  Tami/rifnag^! 


&. 


^  *W  o^  ^Jid  ^/-i^  j.'^^Aji/tJ,  ^  o^IUao         \ 


1 


-O/te 


I 


'^^  4iA4M£, 


^^"^'^'^  ^ 


two'dauLm-r"  "t7'"/"T^  the  unwearied  patience  of  the 
two  daughters.     Tlie  father  and  mother,  and  a  shv    thin 

Whtevc-r"l""  M  °  ""  '"'"K  in  the  flat/were  no  leL'  kind.' 
Whenever  I  could  get  out  into  the  countrv  I  coIJPctcd  speci- 
mens industriously  and  enlivened  the  household  with  hedge- 
hogs and  other  small  beasts  and  reptiles  which  per  isted  fn 
escaping  from  partially  closed  bureau  drawers.^  The  two 


26    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

sons  were  fascinating  students  from  the  University  of  Leip- 
sic,  both  of  them  belonging  to  dueling  corps,  and  much 

rX^  n'"  i^°".'%"^"^^-.  .^"^'  ^  ^^'"^"^  swordsman,  was 
called  DerRohe  Herzog  (the  Red  Duke),  and  the  other  was 
nicknamed  Herr  Nasehom  (Sir  Rhinoceros)  because  the  tip 
of  his  nose  had  been  cut  off  in  a  duel  and  sewn  on  again. 
I  learned  a  good  deal  of  German  here,  in  spite  of  myself, 
and  above  all  I  became  fascinated  with  the  Nibelungenlied 
German  prose  never  became  really  easy  to  me  in  the  sense 
that  trench  prose  did,  but  for  German  poetry  I  cared  as 
mucn  as  for  English  poetry.     Above  all,  I  gained  an  im- 
pression  of  the  German   people   which    I   never  got  over 
l-rom  that  time  to  this  it  would  have  been  quite  impossible 
to  make  mc  feel  that  the  Germans  were  really  foreigners. 
The  affection,  the  Gemuthlichkeit  (a  quality  which  cannot 
be  exactly  expressed  by  any  single  English  word),  the  ca- 
pacity for  hard  work,  the  sense  of  duty,  the  delight  in  study- 
ing literature  and  science    the  pride  in  the  new  Germany, 
the  more  than  kind  and  friendly  interest  in  three  strange 
children  —  all  these  manifestation,  of  the  German  character 
and  of  German  family  life  made  a  subconscious  impression 
upon  me  which  I  did  not  in  the  least  define  at  the  time,  but 
which  IS  very  vivid  still  forty  years  later 

VVhen  I  got  back  to  America,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  I  began 
serious  study  to  enter  Harvard  under  Mr.  Arthur  Cutler, 
who  later  founded  the  Cutler  School  in  New  York.  I  could 
not  go  to  school  because  I  knew  so  much  less  than  most 
boys  ot  my  age  in  some  subjects  and  so  much  more  in  others. 
In  science  and  history  and  geography  and  in  unexpected 
parts  of  German  and  French  I  was  strong,  but  lamentably 
weak  m  Latin  and  Greek  and  mathematics.  Aly  grandfather 
had  made  his  summer  home  in  Oyster  Bay  a  number  of  years 

ll.Z'^' t^^ r^ ■^^^\'''  "T  '^^'^'-"  ^>^^^^'-  ^^y  the  summer 
home  of  his  family  also.  Alcng  with  my  college  preparatory 
studies  I  earned  on  the  work  of  a  practical  student  of  natural 
history.  I  worked  with  greater  industry  than  either  intelli- 
gence or  success,  and  made  very  few  additions  to  the  sum 
ot  human  knowledge;  ut  to  this  day  certain  obscure  orni- 
thological publications  may  be  found  in  which  are  recorded 


BOYHOOD  AND   YOUTH 


I 

i 


Theodore  Roo  evelt  T       t'^Ov^?";  r"'  "^^^l"^^  ^^^  «"- 
Long  Island  Sound  '    '''  ^^>''  ^^"  ^^c  shore  of 

I  thot.gr.i'/2^7,td  Hir;'rd"^^^rf  ^^^^^-^^-^  •-  '««- 

good,  but  only  tt  genel-al' off  A  f"'"  f"  ''  ^'^  ^^ 
little  in  m-  actual  stndfll  J-  ?  u"'  ^^^  ^'^^'"^  ^^^  ^ery 
More  than^one  of  mv  own  ^^''^'V  helped  me  in  after  life^ 
their  friendship  with^^rain  o^th  •"'  '^'^'^y .P^ofit.d  by 
college.     I  certain Iv  nr^fit  Ji^  u  r  P^^^ers  in  school  or 

my  tutors  Mr  (^^tl>?  and  In  h""^  ^''T^'^'^  ""''^  °"^  «f 
professor  of  EngTi  h  Air' A  S  5,^  ^  uT"^  T'^  '^  ^^e 
own  fault   f  sa^  alrAost  nothtg  o    Pr^^dt^^^  '">^ 

little  of  the  professors      I  ..,       »  .   r'rtMdent  Lhot  and  very 

than  I  did  gaTn  from  writ  n.t^erh  ^'"'  ^T.'^  "^"^^  more 
failure  to  do  so  mav  hav,  h  T''',  ^"'^  fo^ensics.     My 

interest  in  the:u^:it^"Befor"e  He'fW"'  '  H  ^  ^^''i"^  "° 
writing  one  or  two  cham^S  . 7   t     .   ™^a'"^  ^  was  already 
on  thf  Nava    VVar  of"^  8x3"^  Vt"^  ^  f^^^'-^^^^^  P^bHsheS 
that  they  would  have  mad,  .   VT     ""^^P^^"'  "'ere  so  dry 
by  comparison      Still  Xt  r   '^''''''''^7  ''^^"^  light  reading 
interest  on  my  par     no    Vh    P'^'^'"^  P"''P°^^  ^"^^  «^"o"s 
enough  toge7a  certain  riark^.'n'H""''^'"^-'^^''^  '^  ^^  ^^» 
skilled  older  man  vvould^.v'-  ''"'^  ^^''^'^t.ons  of  them  by  a 
manded  my  r^pecX  utent;o;rP''R''^r  ""'  ^"^  ^ave  corn- 
developed  to  make  rnv"  elf  rTi  •  ^",V^  ^*«  "°^  sufficientlv 

of  theLbjectTJ::i^n^d'L"^it;;e'rrreVortrv"  ^°r 
?oubtrrdo;^e  r^Vt'Tpe-'^  splf.^^^^^^^^^^^ 

this  particular  sub  ect  unti    f^'"",^"-^'  ^^^^  "^^  grow  up  to 

frigate  and  sloop  actions  bet™  th^T^'  ''''"'  ^''Y'  ^he 
sea-tigers  of   1812  were  m.S,  -American  and  British 

worked  drearily 'a't  the  G    cchi  bTcausritd";^  '''''■     ' 


28    THKODORK   ROOSEVKLT-AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

loss  to  mc  in  otu-  way.  In  another  way  it  was  not.  Per- 
sonally I  have  not  the  sli^'htest  sympathy  with  d  hating 
contests  in  whicli  each  side  is  arbitrarily  assigned  a  given 
proposition  and  told  to  maintain  it  without  the  least  refer- 
ence to  whether  those  maintaining  it  believe  in  it  or  not. 
I  know  that  under  our  system  this  is  necessary  for  lawyers, 
but  I  emphatically  disbelieve  in  it  as  regards  general  dis- 
cussion of  political,  social,  and  industrial  matters.  What 
we  need  is  to  turn  out  of  our  colleges  young  men  with  ardent 
convictions  on  the  side  of  the  right;  not  young  men  who 
can  make  a  good  argument  for  either  right  or  wrong  as  their 
interest  bids  them.  The  present  method  of  carrying  on 
debates  on  such  subjects  as  "Our  Colonial  Policy,"  or  "The 
Need  of  a  Navy,"  or  "The  Proper  Position  of  the  Courts  in 
Constitutional  Questions,"  encourages  precisely  the  wrong 
attitude  among  those  who  take  part  in  them.  There  is  no 
elTort  to  instill  sincerity  and  intensity  of  conviction.  On 
the  contrary,  the  net  result  is  to  make  the  contestants  feel 
that  their  convictions  have  nothing  to  do  with  their  argu- 
ments. I  am  sorry  I  did  not  study  elocution  in  college; 
but  I  am  exceedingly  glad  that  I  did  not  take  part  in  the 
type  of  debate  in  which  stress  is  laid,  not  upon  getting  a 
speaker  to  think  rightly,  but  on  getting  him  to  talk  glibly 
on  the  side  to  which  he  is  assigned,  without  regard  either 
to  what  his  convictions  are  or  to  what  they  ought  to  be. 

I  was  a  reasonably  good  student  in  college,  standing  just 
within  the  first  tenth  of  my  class,  if  I  remember  rightly; 
although  I  am  not  sure  whether  this  means  the  tenth  of  the 
whole  number  that  entered  or  of  those  that  graduated.  I 
was  given  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  "key."  My  chief  interests 
were  scientific.  When  I  entered  college,  I  was  devoted  to 
out-of-doors  natural  history,  and  my  ambition  was  to  be  a 
scientific  man  of  the  Audubon,  or  Wilson,  or  Baird,  or 
Coues  type  —  a  man  like  Hart  Merriam,  or  Frank  Chap- 
man, or  Hornaday,  to-day.  My  father  had  from  the  earliest 
days  mstilled  into  me  the  knowledge  that  I  was  to  work 
and  to  make  my  own  way  in  the  world,  and  I  had  always 
supposed  that  this  meant  that  I  must  enter  business.  But 
m  my  freshman  year  (he  died  when  I  was  a  sophomore)  he 


BOYHOOD   AND   YOUTH  ,9 

told  me  that  if  I  wished  to  become  a  scientific  man  I  could 
t.n  I  J**^.  ^'^P'^'"^ d  that  I  must  be  sure  that  I  really  in- 
tensely desired  to  do  scientific  work,  because  if  I  went  into 
n  1  must  make- It  a  serious  career;  that  he  had  made  enough 
money  to  enable  me  to  take  up  such  a  career  and  do  non- 

u^ork  then-  u-as  tn  me;   but  that  I  must  not  dream  of  taking 

hat^tnv  '^'^"^"^-  "^  -'-  K-ve  me  a  piece  of  advicf 
that  I  ha^e  always  remembered,  namely,  that,  if  I  was  not 

fnTi?       V  h"  """'^^'  \'^'''\  ?''?  ^"^'"^^  "P  ^y  ""t  «P^-nd- 
tLt    and  if  I  "^P-"^'^^^'^  'f'  I  had  to  keep  the  fraction  c'on- 

^,  :t  r  ^  T^'i'"'  ^^''  '"  '"'-■'■^•^^^"  the  numerator,  then 
I  must  reduce  the  denominator.  In  other  words,  if  iWent 
into  a  scientific  career,  I  must  definitely  abandon  all  thought 
of  the  enjoyment  that  could  accompany  a  money-makfng 
career,  and  must  find  my  pleasures  elsevvhere  ^ 

myHf^wnrl-'^^^l'''""/  ^"l'>'  '^''''^"^  ^"  '"^ke  science 

tTL  Harvh  .    r''      ■■  '•'"  ''"'P'"  '■^■"^""  ^hat  at  that 

time   Hanard,   and    I   suppose  our  other  colleges,   utterly 

Ignored  the  possibilities  of  the  faunal  naturalist,  f  he  outdoo^ 
naturalist  and  observer  of  nature.  They  treated  biology 
as  purely  a  science  of  the  laboratory  and\he  microscope^a 
cience  whose  adherents  were  to  spend  their  time  Tn^  the 
study  of  minute  forms  of  marine  life,  or  else  in  section- 
cutting  and  the  study  of  the  tissues  of  the  higher  organ  ms 
under  the  microscope.     This  attitude  was,  no  doubt,^in  par 

tL.  •  ?  r'^'  '^^'  '".'"^■'^'  ^°"^?^'''  then  there  was  a  not 
always  intelligent  copying  of  what  was  done  in  the  great 
German  univ-ersit.es  The  sound  revolt  against  super- 
fic  ahty  of  study  had  been  carried  to  an  extrenfe ;   thorou^gh- 

."nTo  rfe";i"h  \r  '^'  ""''^'  '^"^"/  ''^^y  had  been  erecfed 
into  a  feti.h.  There  was  a  total  failure  to  understand  the 
great  variety  of  kinds  of  work  that  could  be  done  by  natu- 
ralists, indud.ng  what  could  be  done  by  outdoor  naturalists 

in  th.  R  "f  "•  Tc*"  '''"'^  ""'■'  ^l<-^rnam  and  his  assistants 
in  the  Biological  Surve>-  have  carried  to  such  a  high  degree 
of  perfection  as  regards  North  American  mammals':     I.Ahe 

methnl^r^P'T  T""  '°  ^"  ^^^ovongh  and  to  avoid  slipshod 
methods,  the  tendency  was  to  treat  as  not  serious,  as  un- 


30    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT-AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

scientific,  any  kind  of  work  that  was  not  carried  on  with 
laborious  minuteness  in  the  laboratory.  My  taste  was 
specialized  in  a  totally  different  direction,  and  I  had  no  more 
desire  or  ability  to  be  a  microscopist  and  section-cutter 
than  to  be  a  mathematician.  Accordingly  I  abandoned 
ali  thought  of  becoming  a  scientist.  Doubtless  this  meant 
that  I  really  did  no.  have  the  intense  devotion  to  science 
which  I  thought  I  had;  for,  if  I  had  possessed  such  devo- 
tion, I  would  have  carved  out  a  career  for  myself  somehow 
without  regard  to  discouragements. 

As  regards  political  economy,   I  was  of  course  while  in 
college    taught    the    laissfz-fairc    doctrines  —  one    of    them 
being    free    trade  —  then     accepted     as    canonical.     Most 
American  boys  of  my  age  were  taught  both  by  their  sur- 
roundings and  by  their  studies  certain  principles  which  were 
very  valuable  from  the  standpoint  of  National  interest,  and 
certain   others   which   were   very   much   the   reverse.     The 
political  economists  were  not  especially  to  blame  for  this; 
\t  was  the  general  attitude  of  the  writers  who  wrote  for  us 
of  that  generation.     Take  my  beloved    Our    Young  Folks, 
the  magazine  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  and  which 
taught  me  much  more  than  any  of  my  text-books.     Every- 
thing in  this  magazine  instilled  the  individual  virtues,  and 
the  necessity  of  character  as  the  chief  factor  in  any  man's 
success  —  a  teaching  in  which  I  now  believe  as  sincerely  as 
ever,  for  all  the  laws  that  the  wit  of  man  can  devise  will 
never  make  a  man  a  worthy  citizen   unless  he  has  within 
himself  the  right  stuff,  unless  he  has  self-reliance,  energy, 
courage,  the  power  of  insisting  on  his  own  rights  and  the 
sympathy  that  makes  him  regardful  of  the  rights  of  others. 
All  this  individual  morality  I  was  taught  by  the  books  I 
read  at  home  and  the  books  I  studied  at  Harvard.     But 
there  was   almost   no  teaching  of  the   need   for  collective 
action,  and  of  the  fact  that  in  addition  to,  not  as  a  sub- 
stitute for,  individual  responsibility,  there  is  a  collective  re- 
sponsibility.    Books  such  as  Herbert  Croly's  "Promise  of 
American  Life"  and  Walter  E.  Weyl's  "New  Democracy" 
would  generally  at  that  time  have  been  treated  either  as 
unintelligible  or  else  as  pure  heresy. 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH  j, 

The  teaching  which  I  received  was  genuinely  democratic 

n  one  way.     It  was  not  so  democratic  in  another      I  gJe^ 

mto  manhood  thoroughly  in.bued  with  the  feehng    hat  a 

man  must  b^  respected  for  what  he  made  of  hfrnself      Bu? 

!J^;  II  ^'''V°"','^'""'^'>'  "■■  UH'-onsciously,  been  uught  that 
socially  and  jndustrially  pretty  much  the   whde  duty  o 
the  man  lay  in  thus  making  the  best  of  him.  -If     tuJ^  • 

in  The  old  f"T^  '"/"^  ''''"''  vvhh'othe?:Tnd';h  bi: 
in  the  old-fashiored  way  to  the  unfortunate-  but  that  t 
was  no  part  of  his  business  to  join  with  others  in  trvinJto 
make  things  better  for  the  many  by  curb  n^the  aKma^ 
and  excessive  development  of  individualismTn  a  few      nTw 

On  thTcorarf  th'*-  '"'"'"^  ""^  '>'•  ^">'  --ns  all  bad 
hUiflr      ''°"^"r>.'  t'^^'  insistence  upon  individual  resoonsi- 
bihty  was    and  is,  and  always  will  be,  a  prime  necesTv 
Teaching  of  the  kind  I  absorbed  from  both  mT text  bSs 

t^ln/vrT^^T  ''  '  ^''^'^y  anti-scorbudc  to  the^n 
fn?.?n  •  \'''"'''  •>'  '^^'"P'^'^'^ntly  excusing  the  individual 
for  all  his  shortcomings  would  finally  hopelessly  weakli  the 
spring  of  moral  purpose.  It  also  keeps  alive  Tat  vi  He 
vigor  for  the  lack  of  which  in  the  average  individnaYn^ 
possible  perfection  of  law  or  of  communYt/act^on  an  ver 
a  one^  But  such  teaching,  if  not  corrected  by  other  teach- 
ing, means  acquiescence  in  a  riot  of  lawl,.«c  K.i  •  •  .. 
vidualism  whicli  would  be  quIteTs  d  s  ^     ^e  to  rarciVilr 

CT  Tut  'r'"'^  -''i^-yindividualism  S  tl      Dak 
thfn  T  "'"^'-'  ^l'^  '■"^'^'■^'^  the  big  world  owing  more 

than  I  can  express  to  the  training  I  had  received   esoecTaHv 
in  my  own  home;    but  with  much  else  aUto  learn  ff^ 
were  to  become  really  fitted  to  do  my  part  in  tte  work  tha 
lay  ahead  for  the  generation  of  Amer^ans  to  whTch  I  be 


1* 


Broou-  ( 'ou(*r,  by  AlcuaiKr  P  Pmrtor 

PSESCNTEO  TO    Mk.   RoOSEVELT   BV   THK    "TtNNIS  CABINET." 


CHAPTER   II 


THE    VIGOR    OF    LIFE 


LOOKINCj  back,  a  man  really  has  a  more  objective 
feeling;  about  himself  as  a  child  than  he  has  about 
^  his  father  or  mother.  He  feels  as  if  that  child 
were  not  the  present  he,  individually,  but  an 
ancestor;  just  as  n  ich  an  ancestor  as  either  of  his  parents. 
The  saying  that  the  child  is  the  father  to  the  man  may  be 
taken  in  a  sense  almost  the  reverse  of  that  usually  given 
to  it.  The  child  is  father  to  the  man  in  the  sense  that  his 
individuality  is  separate  from  the  individuality  of  the  grown- 
up into  which  he  turns.  This  is  perhaps  one  reason  why  a 
man  can  speak  of  his  childhood  and  early  youth  with  a 
sense  of  detachment. 

Ha\  ing  been  a  sickly  boy,  with  no  natural  bodily  prow- 
ess, and  having  lived  much  at  home,  I  was  at  first  quite 
unable  to  hold  my  own  when  thrown  into  contact  with 
other  boys  of  rougher  antecedents.  I  was  nervous  and 
timid.  Vet  from  reading  of  the  people  I  admired  —  rang- 
ing from  the  soldiers  of  \'alley  Forge,  and  Morgan's  rifle- 
men, to  the  heroes  of  my  favorite  stories  —  and  from  hear- 
ing of  the  feats  performed  by  my  Southern  forefathers  and 
kinsfolk,  and  from  knowing  my  father,  I  felt  a  great  admira- 
tion for  men  who  were  fearless  and  who  could  hold  their 
own  in  the  world,  and  I  had  a  great  desire  to  be  like  them. 
Until  I  was  nearly  fourteen  I  let  this  desire  take  no  more 
definite  shape  than  day-dreams.  Then  an  incident  hap- 
pened that  did  me  real  good.     Having  an  attack  of  asthma, 

32 


TH      \'IC()R   OF    1,1  FK 


33 


I  was  sent  off  by  mysdf  to  Mocsihead  Lake.  On  the  staRe- 
coach  nde  thither  I  encountered  a  couple  of  other  b(Tys 
who  were  about  my  ..vvn  aKe,  but  very  much  more  compel 
tent  and  also  much  more  mischievous.  I  have  no  doubt 
they  vvtTe  K<K'd-hearted  boys,  but  they  were  bovs  !  Thev 
found  that  I  was  a  foreordained  and  predestin'ed  victitn 
and  mdustnously  proceeded  to  make  life  miserable  for  me' 
I  he  worst  feature  was  that  when  I  finally  tried  to  fight 
thtn  I  d.scfnered  that  either  one  singly  could  not  only 
handle  me  with  easy  contempt,  but  handle  me  so  as  not 

whJt^e'enn'retur'  '"'  "  '''"'"''  '">'  '"'"«  ^">'  '^"^^^^ 

good  advue  could  have  taught  me.  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  I  must  try  to  learn  so  that  I  would  not  again  be  put  in 
such  a  helpless  position;  and  having  become  quickly  and 
bitterly  conscious  that  I  did  not  have  the  natural  provl- 
CSS  to  hold  my  own,  I  decided  that  I  would  try  to  suppTy 

he-irt^v''ann/  TT^'  ■\-^"'-^i"Kly,  with  my  fatl^r'^ 
hcarj     approval,    I     started    to    learn     to    box.     I    was   a 

fwo"L"r  t'hre:.T.  '"^  ^"'^"7^  ^Z'^"'  ^"^  ^'-^^'"'y  --^cd 
two  or  three  years  before  I  made  anv  perceptible  improve- 

mcnt  whatever.     My  first   boxing-master  uL  Jol7l  on^ 

an   ex-prize-fighter.      I    can   see   his   rooms   now,    with   S 

SdHv'an'^a'd  h!'"'  ^^''^^  ^r^"'^'"  ^'T  ">'^-  -'^  ^  ^^k- 
;n  I  '  .  .'"/''"  ""'"^  '^^>'^'''^'  ^"J  "ther  great  events 
.n  he  annals  ol  the  squared  circle.  On  one  occasion  to 
excite  in  erest  among  his  patrons,  he  held  a  series  of  "chkm^ 

b  inf  Tt  l"^' i  ""-^    ''^   ''''  ,^^'^^'^^'"^    -^-i^'''-^'    the   prL" 
1   J15:,  M  "  "'-'  "'''"  '■'^•'''  P^'^t^"-  "i»Ks  of  a  value 

Lt  ?  i  /"PP'^-';  ^Pf"-^'"^^''  '^'  fi^tv  """ts  Neither  he 
entered  in  ^  it".  '''\  '  "'"'  ^o  "anything,  but  T  wa! 
that  I  was  nitt  .  f  '"^'''  '^"'"''^  •'"  ^^hich  it  happened 
If^lv  f     "-"^  '"  succession  against  a  couple  of  reedv 

striplings  who  were  even  worse  than  I  was  Eauallv  rn 
their  surprise  and  to  my  own,  and  to  fohn  Lonf'l  I  'U 

fe«ion:  Ti:i"^r'  ^TT  ^T  "^  "^>'  "^^^  prized  posl 
abo.f  ;;  f  P  "'J'"'^  ?""^^"^  '"  'f'  ^"'^  i  f'-'ar  bragged 
about  It,  for  a  number  of  years,  and  I  only  wish  I  knew 


i 


34    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

where  it  was  now.  Years  later  I  read  an  account  of  a  little 
man  who  once  in  a  fifth-rate  handicap  race  won  a  worthless 
pewter  medal  and  j<^ycd  in  it  ever  after.  Well,  as  soon  as  I 
read  that  story  I  felt  that  that  little  man  and  I  were  brothers. 

This  was,  as  far  as  I  remember,  the  only  one  of  my  ex- 
ceedingly rare  athletic  triumphs  which  would  be  worth 
relating.  I  did  a  good  deal  of  boxing  atid  wrestling  in 
Harvard,  but  never  attained  to  the  first  rank  in  either, 
even  at  my  own  weight.  Once,  in  the  big  contests  in  the 
Gym,  I  got  either  into  the  finals  or  semi-finals,  I  forgot 
which;  but  aside  from  this  the  chief  part  I  played  was 
to  act  as  trial  horse  for  some  friend  or  classmate  who  did 
have  a  chance  of  distinguishing  himself  in  the  championship 
contests. 

I  was  fond  of  horseback-riding,  but  I  took  to  it  slowly 
and  with  difficulty,  exactly  as  with  boxing.     It  was  a  long 
time  before  I  became  even  a  respectable  rider,  and  I  never 
got  much  higher.     I  mean  by  this  that  I  never  became  a 
first-flight    man    in    the    hunting    field,    and    never    even 
approached   the   bronco-busting  class   in   the   VVest.     Any 
man,   if  he  chooses,   can  gradually   school   himself  to  the 
requisite  nerve,  and  gradually  learn  the  requisite  seat  and 
hands,  that  will  enable  him  to  do  respectably  across  country, 
or  to  perform  the  average  work  on  a  ranch.     Of  my  ranch 
experiences  I   shall  speak  later.     At  intervals  after  leaving 
college  I  hunted  on   Long   Island  with  the  Meadowbrook 
hounds.     Almost  the  only   experience  I  ever  had   in  this 
connection  that  was  of  any  interest  was  on  one  occasion 
when   I  broke  my  arm.     My  purse  did  not  permit  me  to 
own  expensive  horses.     On   this  occasion   I   was  riding  an 
animal,    a   buggy    horse   originally,    which    its   owner   sold 
because   now   and    then    it   insisted   on    thoughtfully   lying 
down  when  in  harness.     It  never  did  this  under  the  sad- 
dle ;  and  when  he  turned  it  out  to  grass  it  would  solemnly 
hop  over  the   fence   and  get  somewhere  where  it  did   not 
belong.     The  last  trait  was  what  converted  it  into  a  hunter. 
It   was   a    natural   jumper,    although    without   any   speed. 
On  the  hunt  in  question   I  got  along  very  well  until  the 
pace  winded  my  ex-buggy  horse,  and  it  turned  a  somersault 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE 


35 


over  a  fence.     When  I  got  on  it  after  the  fall  I  found  I 
could  not  use  my  left  arm.     I  supposed  it  was  merely  a 
stram.      1  he   buggy   horse   was   a   sedate   animal   which    I 
rode  with  a  snaffle.     So  we  pounded  along  at  the  tail  of 
the  hunt,  and  I  did  not  appreciate  that  my  arm  was  broken 
for  three  or  four  fences.     Then  wc  came  to  a  big  drop,  and 
the  jar  rnade  the  bones  slip  past  one  another  so  as  to  throw 
the  hand  out  of  position.     It  did  not  hurt  me  at  all,  and 
at  the  de^a'th  ""^^  ^'  ^^'^  '°  ''^  ^'  ^  rocking-chair,  I  got  in 
I  think  August  Belmont  was  master  of  the  hunt  when  the 
above  incident  occurred.     I  know  he  was  master  on  another 
occasion  on  which  I  met  with  a  mild  adventure.     On  one 
ot  the  hunts  when  I  was  out  a  man  was  thrown,  dragged 
by  one  stirrup,  and  killed.     In  consequence  I  bought  a  pair 
urlu-^%  '^"■'"VP^'  ^hich  I  used  the  next  time  I  went  out 
Within  five  minutes  after  the  run  began  I  found  that  the 
stirrups  were  so  very  "safe"  that  they  would  not  stay  in 
at  all.     l.,rst  one  went  off  at  one  jump,  and  then  the  other 
IhTI.^'  jump -with  a  fall  for  me  on  each  occasion. 
1  hated  to  give  up  the  fun  so  early,  and  accordingly  finished 
the   run   without  any  stirrups.     My  horse  nev?r  went  as 
ast  as  on  that  run.     Doubtless  a  first-class  horseman  can 
ride  as  well  vyithout  stirrups  as  with  them.     But  I  was  not 
a   hrst-class   horseman.     When   anything  unexpected   hap- 
pened,  I  was  apt  to  clasp  the  solemn  buggy  horse  firmlv 
with   my  spurred   heels,   and   the  result  waY  that  he  Sd 
himself  out  to  do  his  best  in  the  way  of  galloping!  lie 
speedily  found  that,  thanks  to  the  snaffle  bit,  I  could  not 
pull  him  in,  so  when  we  came  to  a  down  grade  he  would 
usually  put  on  steam.     Then  if  there  was  a  fence  aT  the 
bottom  and  he  checked  at  all,  I  was  apt  to  shoot  forward' 
and  in  such  event  we  went  over  the  fence  in  a  way  that 
reminded  me  of  Leech's  picture,   in   Punch,  of  Mr.^Ton. 
Noddy  and  his  mare  jumping  a  fence  in  the  following  order : 

t h    H     .T  ^•'^'^>''  ^\^''  '"^'•^'  "•     However,  I  got  in  at 
the  death  this  time  also.  ^ 

I  was  fond  of  walking  and  climbing.     As  a  lad  I  used 
to  go  to  the  north  woods,  in  Maine,  both  in  fall  and  winter. 


36    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

There  I  made  life  friends  of  two  men,  Will  Dow  and  Bill 
bewail :  I  canoed  with  them,  and  tramped  through  the  woods 
with  them,  visitmg  the  vyinter  logging  camps  on  snow-shoes. 
Afterward  they  were  with  me  in  the  West.  Will  Dow  is 
dead.  Bill  Sewall  was  collector  of  customs  under  me,  on 
the  Aroostook  border.  E.xcept  when  hunting  I  never 
did  any  nriountaineering  save  for  a  couple  of  conventional 
trips  up  thcMatterhorn  and  the  Jungfrau  on  one  occasion 
when  1  was  in  Switzerland. 

I  never  did  much  with  the  shotgun,  but  I  practiced  a  good 
deal  with  the  rifle       1  had  a  rifle  range  at\Sagamore  Hill, 
uhere  I  often  took  friends  to  shoot.     Once  or  twice  when 
i   was  visited   by  parties  of  released   Boer  prisoners,  after 
the  close  of  the  South  African  War,  they  and  I  held  shoot- 
ing matches  together.     The  best  man  with  both  pistol  and 
ritie    who   ever    shot    there    was    Stewart    Edward    White 
.Among  the  many  other  good  men  was  a  stanch  friend.  Baron 
bpeck   von   Sternberg,   afterwards  German  Ambassador  at 
Washington    during    my    Presidency.     He    was    a    capital 
shot,  rider,  and  walker,  a  devoted  and  most  efficient  servant 
ot  Germany,  who  had  fought  with  distinction  in  the  Franco- 
German  W  ar  when  barely  more  than  a  bov ;  he  was  the  hero 
of  the  story  of  "the  pig  dog"  in  Archibald  Forbes's  volume 
ot  reminiscences,      [t  was  he  who  first  talked  over  with  me 
the  raising  of  a  regiment  of  horse  riflemen  from  among  the 
ranchmen  and  cowboys  of  the  plains.     When  Ambassador, 
the   poor,    gallant,    tender-hearted    fellow   was   dying  of   a 
slow  and  painful  disease,  so  that  he  could  not  plav  with  the 
rest  ot  us,  but  the  agony  of  his  mortal  illness  never  in  the 
slightest    degree    interfered    with    his    work.     Among    the 
other  men   who  shot  and   rode  and   walked   with   me  was 
Cecil    Spring-Rice,    who    has   just    been    appointed    British 
Ambassador  to  the  I  nited  States.     He  was  my  groomsman, 
my    best    man,    when    [    was    married  -  at    St.    George's 
Hanover  Square,  which  made  me  feel  as  if  I  were  living  in 
one  of  Thackeray  s  novels. 

.My  own  experience  as  regards  marksmanship  was  much 
the  same  as  my  experience  as  regards  horsemanship.  There 
arc  men  whose  eye  and  hand  are  so  quick  and  so  sure  that 


Copyright  by  CUnedinat. 


"Anv  man.  if  he  cm.nsKs,  can  craui  ally  school  himsklf  so  as  to  no 

KESPECTABLV  ACROSS  COUNTRV."  "** 


38    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

^ractice^wm  enilf '''!?"  °^  '"^•"ksmanship  to  which  no 
practice  will  enable  ordinary  men  to  attain.  There  are 
other  men  who  cannot  learn  to  shoot  with  any  accuracy  at 
all.  In  between  come  the  mass  of  men  of  ordinary  abili- 
ties  who,  if  they  choose  resolutely  to  practice,  can  by  sheer 
industry  and  judgment  make  themselves  fa  r  r"fi7shots 
The  men  who  show  this  requisite  industry  and  judgment 
can  without  special  difficulty  raise  themselves  to  the  sS 
class  of  respectable  rifle  shots;  and  it  is  to  this  class  that  I 

w1  h  fhe  rm"'  '?  ^7'  'T^'^  '^''  P°'"^  «f  marksmanship 
with  the  rifle  at  a  target  by  no  means  implies  ability  to  hit 

game  in  the  field,  especially  dangerous  game.     All   kinds 

Id  h'unr''"H'  ""•■^'.r'^  P^>'''"''  -^-  into  befng  a 
good  hunter,  and  especially  a  good  hunter  after  dangerous 

with  the  rifle  enter  into  being  a  good  soldier.  With  dan- 
gerous game,  after  a  fair  degree  of  efficiency  with  the  rifle 
^nH  t^".  1""!"^^'  '^'  P"""^-  '•^^"'^'tes  are  cool  judgment 

rattled  A^vh"^-"''"^'-^^''^^  ^°"^^^^^  '"  avoiding Teing 
rattled.  Any  beginner  is  apt  to  have  "buck  fever"  and 
therefore  no  beginner  should  go  at  dangerous  glmk 

Buck  fever  means  a  state  of  intense  nervous  excitement 
wh.ch  may  be  entirely  divorced  from  timidity.  It  ma' 
afl^ect  a  man  the  first  time  he  has  to  speak  to  a  large  auX 
ence  just  as  it  aflFects  him  the  first  time  he  sees  a  buck  or 
goes  into  battle.  What  such  a  man  needs  s  not  courage 
but  nerve  control,  cool-headedness.  This  he  can  get  onlv 
by   actual   practice.     He   must,    by   custom   and   fepeated 

controT  °Th- '^'"r'T'  '''  ^''  "^'"^^^  thoroughly 'under 
control      This  is  largely  a  matter  of  habit,  in  the  sense  of 

tTl     j'^T^  ^'I'^/^P^-i-.d   exercise   of 'will   power     ^ 
the  man  has  the  right  stuflF  in  him,  his  will  grows  stronger 

Zir  ?T-  T-^  'l'^  f""^'''''  °f  't  -  and  if  he  has  not  fhe 
right  stuff  in  him  he  had  better  keep  clear  of  dangerou! 
game  hunting,  or  indeed  of  any  other  form  of  sport  or  work 
in  which  there  is  bodily  peril 

anf  !^Hci^.^''  ^fV^   '^^  .^^'''^^  ^o  exercise  wariness 

makJhtThl  'n'  T''""^  "^'^^  ^'''  "^^^^«  "'^'^^  will 

make  htm  shoot  as  well  at  the  game  as  at  a  target,  he  can  begin 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE  39 

findT.r;t"^'^^"^^''°"i  ^^""5  ^""^»"«'  ^"«*  ^e  will  then 
ftnd  that  It  does  not  demand  such  abnormal  prowess  as 

w/.^K  .'.1  "  ^Pu  ^°  .""^8'"^-     A  man  who  can  hit  a  soda- 
water  bottle  at  the  distance  of  a  few  yards  can  brain  a  lion 

bratn  ft'whL' V'.'P^'"^''  '^''  ^•«^^"^^'  '^^  '^  ^e  cannot 

still      AiTt  A.  "t^'F-  •""  "t"  ^'  '""^^  ^""g  '^  to  a  stand- 
still.     All  he  has  to  do  is  to  shoot  as  accurately  as  he  would 

at  a  soda-water  bottle;  and  to  do  this  requires  nerve  at 
east  as  much  as  it  does  physical  address.  Havfng  rerc'hed 
this  point,  the  hunter  must  not  imagine  that  hf  is  war- 
ranted in  taking  desperate  chances.  There  a  e  degreeTi^ 
proficiency;  and  what  is  a  warrantable  and  legltimfte  ri  k 
for  a  man  to  take  when  he  has  reached  a  certain  grade  of 
efficiency  may  be  a  foolish  risk  for  him  to  take  bf fore  he 
has  reached  that  grade.  A  man  who  has  reached  the  degree 
of  proficiency  indicated  above  is  quite  warranted  in  walking 

yards      K  tl  F'  'I '"  °P^"  f '^'"'.^°'  ''y^  ^'thin  a  hund  ed   • 
dt.tfrirJ     t      Tu-^'  "°^  ^^^'■8'^'^'  the  man  ought  at  that 
distance  to  knock  him  over  and  prevent  his  charging  •  and 

L      I'^'l  ''  tl'^^'^y  '^^'^'"'S^  the  man  ought  at^  h!t  d"s- 
tance  to  be  able  to  stop  him.     But  the  amount  of  prowess 
which  warrants  a  man  in  relying  on  his  ability  to  perform 
this  feat  does  not  by   any  means  justify    him^in    thinking 
that    for  instance,  he  can  crawl  after  a  wounded  1  on  iZ 
thick  cover.      I  have  known  men  of  indiflPerent  prowe.      o 
perform  this  latter  feat  successfully,   but  at  least  aToLn 
they  have  been  unsuccessful,  a.     ^n  fhese  cases  the  resuh ts 
been  unpleasant.     The  man  who  habitually  follows  wounded 
l.ons  into  thick  coyer  must  be  a  hunter  of\he  highest  skill 
TL'fi"  w  "'  ^'th  certainty  on  an  ultimate  mfuling.       ' 
f.ZlJ'f'  1"^°  °/  '^^'^  ^"^^«  I  ^^^'  «aw  gave  me  buck 
lame  I'n  ^'  ^7  ft'  \^'/  ^^'"^'^  experience^with  ordinary 
game  I  never  had  buck  fever  at  all  with  dangerous  ^amc 
In  my  case  the  overcoming  of  buck  fever  wf s  the  fes^lt 

come  it'^M  "^T  '"^  '  "^'^'^''''^  determination  to  ove  - 
th.^  J  ;  M°'-'-\happily  constituted  men  never  have  to  make 
his  determmcd  effort  at  all  -  which  may  perhaps  Thow 
that  the  average  man  can  profit  more  from  my  experienced 
than  he  can  from  those  of  the  exceptional  ZV^ 


40    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I  have  shot  only  five  kinds  of  animals  which  can  fairly 
be   called   dangerous   game  —  that   is,    the   lion,   elephant, 
rhmoceros,  and  buffalo  in  Africa,  and  the  big  grizzly  bear 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  in  the  Rockies.     Taking  into 
account   not  only   my  own    personal   experience,    but   the 
experiences  of  many  veteran  hunters,  I  regard  all  the  four 
Afncan    animals,    but   especially    the    lion,    elephant,    and 
buffalo,  as  much  more  dangerous  than  the  grizzly.     As  it 
happened,    however,    the    only    narrow   escape    I    person- 
ally   ever    had    was    from    a    grizzly,    and    in    Africa    the 
animal   killed  closest   to   me  as  it  was   charging  was  a  rhi- 
noceros —  all  of  which  goes  to  show  that  a  man  must  not 
generalize  too  broadly  from  his  own  personal  experiences 
On  the  whole,  I  think  the  lion  the  most  dangerous  of  all 
these  five  animals  ;  that  is,  I  think  that,  if  fairly  hunted,  there 
IS  a  larger  percentage  of  hunters  killed  or  mauled  for  a  given 
number  of  lions  killed  than  for  a  given  number  of  any  one 
of  the  other  animals.     Vet  I  personally  had  no  difficulties 
with  lions.     I  twice  killed  lions  which  were  at  bay  and  just 
starting  to  charge,  and  I  killed  a  hcavy-maned  male  while 
It  was  in  full  charge.     But  in  each  instance  I  had  plenty  of 
leeway,  the  animal  being  so  far  off  that  even  if  my  bullet 
had  not  been  fatal  I  should  have  had  time  for  a  couple  more 
shots.     The  African   buffalo   is   undoubtedly   a   dangerous 
beast,  but  it  happened  that  the  few  that  I  shot  did  not 
charge.     A   bull   elephant,   a   vicious   "rogue,"   which   had 
been  killing  people  in  the  native  villages,  did  charge  before 
being  shot  at.     My  son  Kermit  and  I  stopped  it  at  forty 
yards.     Another    bull    elephant,    also    unwounded,    which 
charged,  nearly  got  me,  as  I  had  just  fired  both  cartridges 
from    my    heavy   double-barreled   rifle    in    killing   the   bull 
1  wa.  after    -  the  first  wild  elephant  I  had  ever  seen.     The 
second  bull  came  through  the  thick  brush  to  my  left  like  a 
steam   plow   through   a   light   snowdrift,   everything  snap- 
ping before  his  rush,  and  was  so  near  that  he  could  have 
hit  me  with  his  trunk.     I  slipped  past  him  behind  a  tree. 
1  eopic  have  asked  me  how  I  felt  on  this  occasion.     My 
answer  has  always  been  that  I  suppose  1  felt  as  most  men 
ot  like  experience  feel  on  such  occasions.     At  such  a  moment 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE  ^, 

a  hunter  is  so  very  busy  that  he  has  no  time  to  get  fright- 
ened.    He  wants  to  get  in  his  cartridges  and  try  anXr 

mo^?l"tupi7oATl  Tf""''   ^'"^'^""^   b^^^^^'   ^^^^   the 
most  stupid  of  all  the  dangerous  game  I  know.     Generallv 

their  attitude  is  one  of  mere  stupidity  and  bluff      Rnt^n 

occasions  they  do  charge  wickedly^  K    "hen  wounded  and 

when  entirely  unprovoked.     The  first  I  ever  shot  I  mortal  v 

wounded  at  a  few  rods'  distance,  and  it  charged  with  t  e 

u  most  determination,  whereat  I  and  my  com^nion  bo  h 

fired,  and  more  by  good  luck  than  anything  else  brought 

.t  to  the  ground  just  thirteen  paces  from  where  we  Ttood 

fo"cWe  nle^TT:  ""''  °^  r'  "«^  '^^^  been   meanhg 
to  Charge  me ,  I  have  never  been  certain  which.     It  heard 

us  and  came  at  us  through  rather  thick  brush,  snorting  and 

tossmg  Its  head.     I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  it  had  fixed  v 

hostile  intentions,  and  indeed  with  my  prcvsent  expcHence 

I  think  It  likely  that  if  I  had  not  fired  it%-Lld  have  flinched 

at  the  last  moment  and  either  retreated  or  gone  by  me 

were  lu^h  Tr"  '"^'"""""^   "'"^   '''^'''^  ^"^  '^^  -tion" 
character      I  .  7'"'  T  '''^^'^^"g  ^t  as  a  suspicious 

Wa^inglon.'  '''''  '''''  '^  '"  ^^^  ^^---'  ^^I"--  - 
But,  as  I  said  above,  the  only  narrow  escape  I  met  with 
was  not  from  one  of  these  dangerous  African  animals  but 
from  a  grizzly  bear.  It  was  about  twenty-four  ^asaeo 
I  had  wounded  the  bear  just  at  sunset,  inVwood  of  lod£ 
pole  pines,  and,  following  him,   I  wounded  him  again    as 

throi.h  the  h''  U^''  ^-'^^  °^  ^  '^'''^''-     He  then  ?haVd 
through  the  brush    coming  with   such  speed  and  with  such 

a  qu.ck  movement  to  one  side.     He  was,  however'  prac! 


42    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tically  already  dead,  and  after  another  jump,  and  while 
in  the  very  act  of  trying  to  turn  to  come  at  me,  he  col- 
lapsed hke  a  shot  rabbit. 

By  the  way,  I  had  a  most  exasperating  time  trying  to 
bring  in  his  skin.  I  was  alone,  traveling  on  foot  with  one 
very  docile  little  mountain  mare  for  a  pack  pony  The 
little  mare  cared  nothing  for  bears  or  anything  else,  so  there 
was  no  difficulty  in  packing  her.  But  the  man  without 
experience  can  hardly  realize  the  work  it  was  to  get  that 
bearskin  off  the  carcass  and  then  to  pack  it,  wet,  slippery, 
■nd  heavy,  so  that  it  would  ride  evenly  on  the  pony      I  was 

hLh  "T^  [^"iil'^^l'n^T^A"  P^*^'''"^  ^'th  a  "diamond 
hitch     the  standby  of  Rocky  Mountain  packers  in  my  day  • 
but  the  diamond  hitch  is  a  two-man  iob;  and  even  working 
with  a     squaw  hitch,"  I  got  into  endless  trouble  with  that 
wet  and  slippery  bearskin.     With  infinite  labor  I  would  get 
the  skin  on  the  pony  and  run  the  ropes  over  it  until  to  all 
seeming   It   was    fastened    properly.     Then   off   we    would 
start,  and  after  going  about  a  hundred  yards  I  would  notice 
the  hide  beginning  to  bulge  through  between  two  ropes. 
I  would  shift  one  of  them,  and  then  the  hide  would  bulge 
somewhere  e  se      I  would  shift  the  rope  again ;  and  still 
the  hide  would  flow  slowly  out  as  if  it  was  lava.     The  first 
thing  I  knew  it  would  come  down  on  one  side,  and  the  little 
mare,  with  her  feet  planted  resolutely,  would  wait  for  mc 
to  perform  my   part  by  getting  that  bearskin   back  in  its 
proper  place  on  the  McClellan  saddle  which  I  was  using  as 
a  makeshift  pack  saddle.     The  feat  of  killing  the  bear  the 
previous  day  sank  into  nothing  compared  with  the  feat  of 
making  the  bearskin  ride  properly  as  a  pack  on  the  following 
three  days.  ^ 

The  reason  why  I  was  alone  in  the  mountains  on  this 
occasion  was  because,  for  the  only  time  in  all  my  experience, 
1  had  a  difficulty  with  my  guide.  He  was  a  crippled  old 
mountain  man,  with  a  profound  contempt  for  "tcnderfeet  " 
a  contempt  that  in  my  case  was  accentuated  by  the  fact 
that  1  wore  spectacles  —  which  at  that  dav  and  in  that 
region  were  usually  held  to  indicate  a  defective  moral 
character  m  the  wearer.     He  had  never  previously  acted  as 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE  ^j 

guide  or,  as  he  expressed  it,  "trundled  a  tenderfoot"  and 
though  a  good  hunter,  who  showed  me  much  gTrn'e  our 
experience  together  was  not  happy.  He  was  veryfS^umatJc 
hr.Ji  '?  '°J'':  '^'"^  'j''"'  ^°  ^hat  I  usually  ^had  to  get 
F  n.M  '  '  '5'^'  'u  f^/^' do  ni°«'  °f  »he  work  around  camp 
Fmally  one  day  he  declined  to  go  out  with  me  savina  thf; 
he  had  a  oain  When,  that  afternoon,  I  got  back  to  camn  I 
speedily  round  what  the  "pain"  was     !ve  were  travX^ 

hJlln^Y  '•  ^'l'^'   ^   '^^^'"^  practically  nothing  but  my 
buffalo  sleep.ng-bag,  my  wash  kit,  and  a  pair  of  socks      I 
had  also  taken  a  flask  of  whisky  for  emergencies-aTthouRh 
as  I  found  that  the  emergencies  never  arose  and  that  fea 

out  lT'J^"'\  ""^''^y  ^^^"  '  '"^^  ^^«  <^o\d  or  done 
out,  I  abandoned  the  practice  of  taking  whisky  on  hunting 
tips  twenty  years  ago.  When  I  got^  back  io  camp  hf 
old  fellow  was  sitting  on  a  tree-trunk,  very  erect  S  his 
nfle  across  his  knees,  and  in  response  to  my^oTof  g  eetin  ' 
he  merely  leered  at  me.  I  leaned  my  rifle  against  a  tree 
walked  over  to  where  my  bed  was  lying,  and!  happenine  to 
rummage  in  it  for  something,  I  found  the  S;  fl^k 
was  empty.  I  turned  on  him  at  once  and  accused  him  of 
havmg  drunk  it,  to  which  he  merely  responded  by  asking 
what  I  was  going  to  do  about  it.     There  L  not  seem  much 

onltV      T"^  i^"'  r  ^°"'d  P^'-t  company- we Tere 

only  four  or  five  days  from  a  settlement -and  I  would  Jo 

n  alone,  taking  one  of  the  horses.     He  responded  by  cock- 

o'me    but  7t:7r^  '^V  '''''^^F  ^'-'^"d  be  d'lmned 
li^S"  th..  -t?    "^  ^T  '^^^  ^""y  h°'"«^-     I  answered  "all 
right,     that  if  I  could  not  I  could  not,  and  began  to  mov*^ 
around  to  get  some  flour  and  salt  pork.     He^was  mTs^ed 
by  my  quietness  and  by  the  fact  that  I  had  not  i^anv  wav 
resented  either  his  actions  or  his  language  dur  ng  the  d^ys 
we  had  been  together,  and  did  not  watch  me  as^c  osely  as 
he  ought  to  have  done.     He  was  sitting  with  the  cocke- 
rifle  across  his  knees,  the  muzzle  to  the  left.     My  rifle  wa" 
leaning  against  a  tree  near  the  cooking  things  to^h is  right 
Managing  to  get  near  it,  I  whipped  it  up  Ind  threw  the 
bead  on  him,  calling,  "Hands  up  !"     He  of  course  nut  un 
his  hands,  and  then  said,  "Oh,  come,  I  wa    onJ^  jokbg"^ 


J] 


2«c2  k    5! 


:;i3...i«=  g.jfs 

3  e  s  ,s  J;  -.. 

■  k  E I    _■  s  a 


5^11 


■^       »  *^  **  *■ 


>;  =!?  Cj!  c<  -t 

E  */•*-  -^H  t-S  **"" 


THK   VKIOR   01'    LIFE 


45 


to  wh.ch   I  ansvycrcd,  "WVII,   I  am   ,u,t.     \ow   stra.Vhtcn 
your   legs  and    I.t  yc.ur   riric   k"   to  the   grcund  •'     He   rV 
mcmratcd,   say.ng   the   rifle  would  ,o  off,  and  I  to  d  h  m 
to   et  It  Ko  off.     However,  he  straightened  his  le^s  in  sue 
fa  h.on  that  ,t  eame  to  the  ground  without  a  jan         ,   , 
made  h.m  move  hack,  and  picked  up  the  rifle.      Bv  this       ,  • 
he  was  quite  sober,  and  reall>-  did  not  seen,  an^rv-   I,  okine  ' 
me  quizzically.      He  told  me  that  if  [  would  ^  e         /  ^^k 
h.s  rjflc,  he  wc.u Id  call  it  quits  and  we  could  ,o  on      ;.  her 
did  not  think  It  best  to  trust  him,  so  1  t..ld  him  tint  1; 
hunt  was  pretty  well  through,  anyway,  and  that      wo    j'; 
home.      There  was  a  b  asted  pine  on  the  trail,  in  plain  view  o 

lll'r'^'j*''""',"  ry'  "^'  ^'"^^   '   '*''J  '^i'»  that    I    u  u  d 
leave  h.s  rifle  at  that  blasted  pine  if  [  could  see  him  in  camp 

assume  tnV"r'  ""'  '-Tl  '^''^r  ""•'  f'"-  i^  ''^'  ^'"^J  '  ^Jd 

flour'T^'"*"'-'  '  V'"''  '^'  "V'^"  "^''"■^•'  "i''^  ""''-'"K  iHit  some 
flour     bacon,  and  tea,    and    mv    bed-n.ll    and    start.  H,Vff 

At  the  blasted  pine  I  looked  round,  and  s  could  sc"  him 
in  camp,  I  left  his  rifle  there.  I  then  traveled  till  H.rl  A 
that  night,  for  the  onl>-  time  in  ^y  experience  J  uted  |n 
camping  a  trick  ,,f  the  old-time  trappers  in  he  fi'iln  da v 
ibie  t"o  b  '""  '  "'T'^'  ^'^"  ^""'--J'  hut  still  it  was  n  t  p  ,  : 
ound  n  f^th;  fir  f  ^^•^^'^■^^'"^'  -'PP-'  ^vhile  my  ponv'^ 
Xad  unti    i    r.       M  T'"^''  ''-P^'^''^  t'H-  mare  and  pushed 

I  was,  and  went  out  to  shoot  a  grouse  for  suppeJ^    It  was 


46    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AIJTOBIOCIRAPHY 

while  hunting  in  vain  for  a  erousc  that  I  came  on  the  bear 
and  killed  it  as  above  described. 

When  I  reached  the  settlement  and  went  into  the  store, 
the  storekeeper  identified  me  by  remarking:  "You're  the 
tenderfoot  that  old  Hank  was  trundling,  ain't  you?"  I 
admitted  that  I  was.  A  good  many  years  later,  after  I  had 
been  elected  Vice-President,  I  went  on  a  cougar  hunt  in 
northwestern  Colorado  with  Johnny  Coff,  a  famous  hunter 
and  mountain  man.  It  was  midwinter.  I  was  rather 
proud  of  my  achievement!?,  and  pictured  myself  as  being 
known  to  the  few  settlers  in  the  neighborhood  as  a  success- 
ful mountain-hon  hunter.  I  could  not  help  grinning  when 
1  found  out  that  they  did  not  even  allude  to  me  as  the  Vice- 
President-elect,  let  alone  as  a  hunter,  but  merely  as  "Johnny 
Cioft  s  tourist." 

Of  course  during  the  years  when  I  was  most  busy  at  serious 
work  I  could  do  no  hunting,  and  even  my  riding  was  of  a 
decorous  kind.     But  a  man  whose  business  is  sedentary 
should  get  some  kind  of  exercise  if  he  wishes  to  keep  himself 
in  as  good  physical  trim  as  his  brethren  who  do  manual 
labor.     When  I  worked  on  a  ranch,  I  needed  no  form  of 
exercise  except  my  work,  but  when  I  worked  in  an  office  the 
case  was  different.     A  couple  of  summers   I   played   polo 
with  some  of  .ny  neighbors.     I  shall  always  believe  we  played 
polo  m  just  the  right  way  for  middle-aged  men  with  stables 
of  the  general  utility  order.     Of  course  it  was  polo  which 
was  chiefly  of  interest  to  ourselves,  the  only  onlookers  being 
the  members  of  our  faithful  families.     My  two  ponies  were 
the  only  occupants  of  my  stable  except  a  cart-horse.     My 
wife  and  I  rode  and  drove  them,  and  they  were  used  for 
household  errands  and  for  the  children,  and  for  two  after- 
noons a  week  they  served  me  as  polo  ponies.     Polo  is  a  good 
game,  infinitely  better  for  vigorous  men  than  tennis  or  golf 
or  anything  of  that  kind.     There  is  all  the  fun  of  football, 
with  the  horse  thrown  in  ;  and  if  only  people  would  be  willing 
to  play  It  in  simple  fashion  it  would  be  almost  as  much 
within  their  reach  as  golf.     But  at  Oyster  Bay  our  great 
and   permanent   amusements   were   rowing   and   sailing-    I 
do  not  care  for  the  latter,  and  am  fond  of  the  former  '   I 


THE  \IGOR  OF  LIFE  47 

suppose  it  sounds  archaic,  1  -annot  help  thinking  that 

the  pcopc  with  motor  boat.  ...ss  a  great  deal,  if  they 
would  only  kcvp  to  n.wbc.ats  or  canocsfand  use  oar  or  paX 
d  c  themselves,  they  would  gel  infinitely  more  benefit  than 
by  having  the.r  W(,rk  done  for  them  by  gasoline.  But  I 
rarely  tc>ok  exerc.se  merely  as  exercise.  Primarily  I  took  it 
because  I  l.ked  u.  Play  should  never  be  allowed  to  int^fee 
w.th  work ;  and  a  hfe  devoted  merely  to  play  is,  of  all  form! 
of  existence  the  most  dismal.  But  the  joy  of  lie  is  a 
very  good  thing,  and  while  work  is  the  essential  in  it,  play 
also  has  its  place.  ^  ^ 

When  obliged  to  live  in  cities,  I  for  a  long  time  found  that 
boxmg  and  wrest  mg  enabled  me  to  get  a  good  deal  of  exer- 
cise ,n  condensed  and  attractive  form.     I  was  reluctantly 
obliged  to  abandon  both  as  I  grew  older.     I  dropned  the 
wrestling  earliest      When   I  became  Governor    tTe'cham! 
p  on  middleweight  wrestler  of  America  happened  to  beTn 
Albany,  and  I  got  him  to  come  round  three  or  four  after- 
noons a  week.     Incidentally  I  may  mention  that  his  pres- 
ence  caused   me   a   difficulty   with    the   Comptroller,   who 
refused  to  audit  a  bill  I  put  in  for  a  wrestling-mat,  expl^n^ 
.ng  that  I  could  have  a  billiard-table,  billiards  being  recog- 
mzed  as  a  proper  Gubernatorial   amusement,   but  that  a 
wrestling-mat  symbolized  something  unusual  and  unheard 
of  and  could  not  be  permitted.     The  middleweight  cham- 
pion was  of  course  so  much  better  than  I  was  that  he  could 
not  only  take  care  of  himself  but  of  me  too  and  see  that  I 
!^!L"?i       u   ~  ^"'"  ^Jr^-'^tling  is  a  much  more  violent  amuse- 
mer^t  than  boxing      But  after  a  couple  of  months  he  had  to 
go  away,  and  he  left  as  a  substitute  a  good-humored,  stal- 
wart  professional   oarsman.     The  oarsman   turned  out   to 

care  of'hL  '1  '  '^""'  "^^'^'1'"^;  "^  ^°"'^  "°^  ^^-"  take 
care  of  himself,  not  to  speak  of  me.     By  the  end  of  our 

econd  afternoon  one  of  his  long  ribs  had  been  caved  in  and 
two  of  my  short  ribs  badly  damaged,  and  my  left  shoulder- 
blade  so  nearly  shoved  out  of  place  that  it  creaked.     He 

r  «"'' u-^-^'  p'T'^''  ^-  ^  '^^'  ^^''^^"  I  to'd  him  I  thought 
we  would  "vote  thq  war  a  failure"  and  abandon  wrestling. 
Alter   that   I   took   up   boxing  again.     While   President   I 


48     THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

used  to  box  with  some  of  the  aides,  as  well  as  play  single- 
stick w.th  (.eneral  W ocd.     After  a  few  years  I  had  to  aban- 
don boxing  as  well  as  wrestling,  for  in  one  bout  a  young 
captain  of  artillery  eross-ountered  me  on  the  eye,  and  the 
blow  smashed  the  little  blood-vc^seIs.     Fortunately  it  was 
my  left  eye,  but  the  sight  has  been  dim  ever  since,  and  if 
It  had  been  the  right  eye  I  should  have  been  entirely  unable 
to  shoot      Accordingly  I  thought  it  better  to  acknowledge 
that    I   had    become   an    elderly    man    and    would  have    to 
stop  boxing.      I   then  took  up  jiu-jitsu  for  a  year  or  two. 
U  hen  1  was  in  the  Legislature  and  was  working  very  hard 
with  little  chance  of  getting  out  of  doors,  all  the  exercise  I 
got  was  boxing  and  wrestling.     A  young  fellow  turned  up 
who  was  a  second-rate  prize-fighter,  the  son  of  one  of  my 
old   boxing  teachers.     For  several   weeks   I  had  him  come 
round  to  my  rooms  in  the  morning  to  put  on  the  gloves  with 
me  for  half  an  hour.     Then  he  suddenly  stopped,  and  some 
days  later   I    received  a   letter  of  woe  from  him  from  the 
jai  .      1  hjund  that  he  was  by  profession  a  burglar,  and  merely 
tollowed  boxing  as  the  amusement  of  his  lighter  moments 
or  when  business  was  slack. 

Naturally,  being  fond  of  boxing,  I  grew  to  know  a  good 
many  prize-hghters,  and  to  most  of  those  I  knew  I  grew 
genuinely  attached.  I  have  never  been  able  to  sympathize 
with  the  outcry  against  prize-fighters.  The  only  objection  I 
have  to  the  prize  ring  is  the  crookedness  that  has  attended 
Its  commercial  development.  Outside  of  this  I  regard  box- 
ing whether  professional  or  amateur,  as  a  first-class  sport, 
and  I  do  not  regard  it  as  brutalizing.  Of  course  matches  can 
be  conducted  under  conditions  that  make  them  brutalizing. 
But  this  is  true  of  football  games  and  of  most  other  rough 
and  vigorous  sports.  Most  certainly  prize-fighting  is  not 
halt  as  brutalizing  or  demoralizing  as  many  forms  of  big 
business  and  of  the  legal  work  carried  on  in  connection  with 
big  business.  Powerful,  vigorous  men  of  strong  animal 
development  must  have  some  way  in  which  their  animal 
spirits  can  find  vent.  When  I  was  Police  Commissioner  I 
tound  (and  Jacob  Riis  will  back  me  up  in  this^  that  the 
establishment   of  a    boxing  club   in  a  tough  neighborhood 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE  ^^ 

always  tended  to  do  away  with   knifing  and  gun-fiehtin^ 

among  the  young  fellows  who  would  otherwise  h^e  been  in 

murderous  gangs      Many  of  these  young  fellows  lere  not 

naturally  criminals  at  all,  but  they  had  to  have  some  out"et 

or  their  activities      In  the  same  u'ly  I  have  alwavvs^egarded 

boxing  as  a  first-class  sport  to  encourage  in  the  YoungMen's 

TT  ')f  "^'^^'on-      I  do  not  like  to  see  young  Christians 

with    shoulders    that   slope   like   a    champagne  1.otte      Of 

course  boxing  should  be  encouraged  in  the  army  and  nav^v 

nd'RaCev  r'VH- ""  T""'  ^^P'^'"^'  Fathers  ChidS 
and  Kainey,  by  finding  that  each  of  them  had  bought  half 

a  ton  sets  of  boxing-gloves  and  encouraged  their  cTews  in 

When  I  was  Police  Commissioner,  I  heartily  apnroved 
the  effort  to  get  boxing  clubs  started  in  Xew\'ork  on  a 
dean  basis.  Later  I  was  reluctantly  obliged  to  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  prize  ring  had  become  hopek-Xdebaed 
ar  1  demoralized,  and  as  Governor  I  aidc/in  the  passage 
For  monc'v"     TMs   u '  ^  k""^  '  ''""^  ^°  professional'box  n'g 

then;:;:;;:^' j^'^ZL^Se^tr "'  'f  vr^^^^^'^' 

who  attended  anJra'd\''up '^lid ''  >fi\^^t"  ,  ^^tX" 
balv  hammed  "TnT  "  ''"""'r''^'  ,"'"^'''^-''  ""'« 


so    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  sportsmanship  which  consists  merely  in  looking  on  at  the 
feats  of  some  one  else. 

Some  as  good  citizens  as  I  know  are  or  were  prize-fighters. 
Take  Mike  Donovan,  of  New  York.  He  and  his 
family  represent  a  type  of  American  citizenship  of  which 
we  have  a  right  to  be  proud.  Mike  is  a  devoted  temper- 
ance man,  and  can  be  relied  upon  for  every  movement 
in  the  interest  of  good  citizenship.  I  was  first  intimately 
thrown  with  him  when  I  was  Police  Commissioner.  One 
evening  he  and  I  —  both  in  dress  suits  —  attended  a 
temperance  meeting  of  Catholic  societies.  It  culminated  in 
a  lively  set-to  between  myself  and  a  Tammany  Senator 
who  was  a  very  good  fellow,  but  whose  ideas  of  temperance 
differed  radically  from  mine,  and,  as  the  event  proved, 
from  those  of  the  majority  of  the  meeting.  Mike  evi- 
dently regarded  himself  as  my  backer  — he  was  sitting  on 
the  platform  beside  me  —  and  I  think  felt  as  pleased  and 
interested  as  if  the  set-to  had  been  physical  instead  of 
merely  verbal.  Afterwards  I  grew  to  know  him  well  both 
while  I  was  Governor  and  while  I  was  President,  and  many 
a  time  he  came  on  and  boxed  with  me. 

Battling  Nelson  was  another  stanch  friend,  and  he  and 
I  think  alike  on  most  questions  of  political  and  industrial 
life;  although  he  once  expressed  to  me  some  commisera- 
tion because,  as  President,  I  did  not  get  anything  like  the 
money  return  for  my  services  that  he  aggregated  during 
the  same  term  of  years  in  the  ring.  Bob  Fitzsimmons  was 
another  good  friend  of  mine.  He  has  never  forgotten  his 
early  skill  3s  a  blacksmith,  and  among  the  things  that  I 
value  and  always  keep  in  use  is  a  penholder  made  by  Bob 
out  of  a  horseshoe,  with  an  inscription  saying  that  it  is 
"Made  for  and  presented  to  President  Theodore  Roosevelt 
by  his  friend  and  admirer,  Robert  Fitzsimmons."  I  have 
for  a  long  time  had  the  friendship  of  John  L.  Sullivan,  than 
whom  in  his  jprime  no  better  man  ever  stepped  into  the  ring. 
He  is  now  a  Massachusetts  farmer.  John  used  occasionally 
to  visit  me  at  the  White  House,  his  advent  always  causing 
a  distinct  flutter  among  the  waiting  Senators  and  Congress- 
men.   When  I  went  to  Africa  he  presented  me  with  a  gold- 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE 


51 


mounted  rabbit's  foot  for  luck.     I  carried  it  throueh  mv 
African  trip ;  and  I  certainly  had  good  luck. 

On  one  occasion  one  of  my  prize-fighting  friends  called 
on  me  at  the  White  House  on  business.     He  explained  that 
he -wished  to  see  me  alone,  sat  down  opposite  me,  and  put 
a  very  expensive  cigar  on  the  desk,  saying,  "Have  a  cigar." 
1  thanked  him  and  said  I  did  not  smoke,  to  which  he  re- 
sponded.    Put  it  in  your  pocket."     He  then  added,  "Take 
another;    put    both    in    your    pocket."     This     I   accord- 
mgly     did.       Having     thus    shown     at     the    outset    the 
necessary  formal  courtesy,  my  visitor,  an  old  and  valued 
tri^nd,   proceeded    to   explain   that   a   nephew  of   his   had 
en.  ?ted  in  the  Marine  Corps,  but  had  been  absent  without 
lea   »,  and  was  threatened  with  dishonorable  discharge  on 
the    round  of  desertion.     My  visitor,  a  good  citizen  and  a 
patr  )tic  American,  was  stung  to  the  quick  at  the  thought 
of  such  an  incident  occurring  in  his  family,  and  he  explained 
to  me  that  it  must  not  occur,  that  there  must  not  be  the 
disgrace  to  the  family,  although  he  would  be  delighted  to 
have  the  offender  "handled  rough"  to  teach  him  a  needed 
lesson ;  he  added  that  he  wished  I  would  take  him  and  handle 
him  myself,  for  he  knew  that  I  would  see  that  he  "irot  all 
that  was  coming  to  him."    Then  a  look  of  pathos  came  into 
^tlT''^"''  ^'  ^^Pl^>"ed  :  "That  boy  I  just  cannot  under- 
stand.    He  was  my  sister's  favorite  son,  and  I  always  took 
a  special  interest  in  him  myself.     I  did  my  best  to  bring 
h.m  up  the  way  he  ought  to  go.     But  there  was  just  nothinf 
to  be  done  wi  h  him      His  tastes  were  naturally  low.     ul 
«TrL'       ^■^''  •^°'"'"  this  debasing  taste  for  music 
friend's  wish  •"^"''■''  '"^  ^  ^''  ^^'^  ^°  «^^"^  ^Y 

While  in  the  White  House  I  always  tried  to  get  a  couple 
of  hours'   exercise  in   the   afternoons  -  sometimes   tenni 
more   often    riding    or   else   a    rough    cross-country   walk 
perhaps  do^vn  Rock  Creek,  which  was  then  as  wHd  as  a 
trearn  in  the  White  Mountains,  or  on  the  Virginia  side  along 
the  Potomac.     My  companions  at  tennis  or  on  these  ride! 
and  walks  we  gradually  grew  to  style  the  Tennis  Cabinet 
and  then  we  extended  the  term  to  take  in  many  of  my  S 


52     IHKODORK    ROOSFAKLT-  AN    AUTOBIOCIRAPHY 


time  Western  friends  such  as  Ben  Daniels,  Seth  Bullock, 
I.uther   Kelly,    and   others   who   had    taken   part    with    me 
in  more  serious  outdoor  adventures  than  walking  and  riding 
for  pleasure.     Most  of  the  men  who  were  oftenest  with  me 
on  these  trips       men  like  Major-Ciencral   Leonard  Wood; 
(ir  Major-CIeneral  Thomas  Henry  Barry;  or  Presley  Marion 
Rixe\-,  Surgeon-Ckneral    of    the    Xavy;   or  Robert  Bacon, 
who  was    literwards  Secretary  of  Stale;  or  James  Garfield, 
who    was    Secretary   of   the    Interior;   or  Gifford    Pinchot, 
who   was   chief  of   the   P'orest    Service  —  were  better   men 
plij  sically  than  I  was  ;  but  I  could  ride  and  walk  well  enough 
for  us  all  thoroughly  to  enjoy  it.     Often,  especially  in  the 
winters  and  early   springs,   we  would  arrange  for  a  point 
to  point  walk,  not  turning  aside  for  anything    -  for  instance, 
swimming  Rock  Creek  or  even  the  I'otomac  if  il  came  in 
our  way.     Of  course  under  such  circumstances  we  had  to 
arrange    hat  our  return  to  Washington  should  be  when  it 
was  dark,  so  th;>t  our  appearance  might  scandalize  no  one. 
On   several   occasions    we    thus   swam    Rock   Creek   in    the 
early  spring  when  the  ice  was  floating  thick  upon  it.     If  we 
fwam    the    Potomac,    we   usually    took   off  our   clothes.     I 
remember  <ine  such  occasion  when  the  French  Ambassador, 
Jusserand,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Tennis  Cabinet,  was 
along,  and,  just  as  we  were  about  to  get  in  to  swim,  some- 
body said,  "Mr.  Ambassador,  Mr.  Ambassador,  you  haven't 
taken  off  your  gloves,"  to   which  he  promptly    responded, 
"I   think    I   will   leave   them  on;  we  might  meet   ladies!" 
\\  e  liked  Rock  Creek  for  these  walks  because  we  could  do 
so  much  scrambling  and  climbing  along  the  cliffs  ;  there  was 
almost  as  much  cliinbing  when  we  walked  down  the  Potomac 
to  Washington  from  the  \irginia  end  of  the  Chain  Bridge. 
I  would  occasionally  take  some  big-game  friend  from  abroad, 
Selous   cv   St.   C}eorge   Littledale  or  Captain    Radclyffe  or 
Paul  Xiedicke,  on  these  walks.     Once   I  invited  an  entire 
class  ot   officers   who   were  attending  lectures  at   the  War 
College  to  come  on  one  of  these  walks  ;  I  cliose  a  route  which 
gave  us  the  hardest  climbing  along  the  rocks  and  the  deepest 
crossings  of  the  creek  ;  and  nn  a-my  friends  enjoyed  it  hugely 
—  being  the  right  sort,  to  a  man. 


"?H7\V»rrowrtr  ''•"""^    '"'-'''    "'    ""'""^    '™''   "■■=«=   ATTKXDINC    LECTURES  AT 

THE  War  College,  to  tom!   ..v  ovf   of  these   walks      I  cno-;F   v    ROLih   «hi,h 

GAVE   ,S    THE   HARDEST  CL.MB.NC    ALONG    THE    R,K-KS    AND   T  HDUHEST    CROSSING  o" 
THE^CREEK.   AND  MV   ARMV  FR.ENDS   ENJOVED   .T  HIGELV    -  UE.NO  THE   R.GHl    SORT^  ^o 


54    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

On  March  i,  1909,  three  days  before  leaving  the  Presi- 
dency, various  members  of  the  Tennis  Cabinet  lunched 
with  me  at  the  White  House.  "Tennis  Cabinet"  was  an 
elastic  term,  and  of  course  many  who  ought  to  have  been 
at  the  lunch  were,  for  one  reason  or  another,  away  from 
Washington ;  but,  to  make  up  for  this,  a  goodly  number  of 
out-of-town  honorary  members,  so  to  speak,  were  present 
—  for  instance,  Seth  Bullock ;  Luther  Kelly,  better  known 
as  Yellowstone  Kelly  in  the  days  when  he  was  an  army  scout 
against  the  Sioux ;  and  Abernathy,  the  wolf-hunter.  At  the 
end  of  the  lunch  Seth  Bullock  suddenly  reached  forward, 
swept  aside  a  mass  of  flowers  which  made  a  centerpiece  on 
the  table,  and  revealed  a  bronze  cougar  by  Proctor,  which 
was  a  parting  gift  to  me.  The  lunch  party  and  the  cougar 
were  then  photographed  on  the  lawn. 

Some  of  the  younger  officers  who  were  my  constant 
companions  on  these  walks  and  rides  pointed  out  to  me  the 
condition  of  utter  physical  worthlessness  into  which  certain 
of  the  elder  ones  had  permitted  themselves  to  lapse,  and  the 
very  bad  effect  this  would  certainly  have  if  ever  the  army 
were  called  into  service.  I  then  looked  into  the  matter  for 
myself,  and  was  really  shocked  at  what  I  found.  Many 
of  the  older  officers  were  so  unfit  physically  that  their  con- 
dition would  have  excited  laughter,  had  it  not  been  so  serious, 
to  think  that  they  belonged  to  the  military  arm  of  the 
Government.  A  cavalry  colonel  proved  unable  to  keep 
his  horse  at  a  smart  trot  for  even  half  a  mile,  when  I  visited 
his  post ;  a  Major-General  proved  afraid  even  to  let  his  horse 
canter,  when  he  went  on  a  ride  with  us ;  and  certain  other- 
wise good  men  proved  as  unable  to  walk  as  if  they  had  been 
sedentary  brokers.  I  consulted  with  men  like  Major- 
Generals  Wood  and  Bell,  who  were  themselves  of  fine  phy- 
sique, with  bodies  fit  to  meet  any  demand.  It  was  late  in 
my  administration ;  and  we  deemed  it  best  only  to  make  a 
beginning  —  experience  teaches  the  most  inveterate  reformer 
how  hard  it  is  to  get  a  totally  non-military  nation  to  accept 
seriously  any  military  improvement.  Accordingly,  I  merely 
issued  directions  that  each  officer  should  prove  his  ability 
to  walk  fifty  miles,  or  ride  one  hundred,  in  three  days. 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE 


55 


This  IS,  of  course,  a  test  which  many  a  healthy  middle- 
aged  woman  would  be  able  to  meet.     But  a  large  portion  of 
the  press  adopted  the  view  that  it  was  a  bit  of  capricious 
tyranny  on  my  part;  and  a  considerable  number  of  elderly 
officers,  with  desk  rather  than  field  experience,  intrigued 
with  their  friends  in  Congress  to  have  the  order  annulled. 
bo  one  day  I  took  a  ride  of  a  little  over  one  hundred  miles 
myself,  in  company  with  Surgeon-General  Rixey  and  two 
other  officers.     The  Virginia  roads  were  frozen  and  in  ruts 
and  in  the  afternoon  and  evening  there  was  a  storm  of  snow 
and  sleet;  and  when  it  had  been  thus  experimentally  shown 
under  unfavorable  conditions,  how  easy  it  was  to  do  in  one 
day  the  task  for  which  the  army  officers  were  allowed  three 
•n^'j-j    °P^"  objection  ceased.     But  some  bureau  chiefs 
still  did  as  much  underhanded  work  against  the  order  as 
they  dared,  and  it  was  often  difficult  to  reach  them.     In 
the  Marine  Corps  Captain  Leonard,  who  had  lost  an  arm 
at  Tientsin,  with  two  of  his  lieutenants  did  the  fifty  miles 
in  one  day ;  for  they  were  vigorous  young  men,  who  lauehed 
at  the  idea  of  treating  a  fifty-mile  walk  as  over-fatiguin?. 
Well,  the  Navy  Department  officials  rebuked  them,  and 
made  them  take  the  walk  over  again  in  three  days,  on  the 
ground  that  taking  it  in  one  day  did  not  comply  with  the 
regulations  !    This  seems  unbelievable ;  but  Leonard  assures 
me  It  IS  true.     He  did  not  inform  me  at  the  time,  being 
?f  t'k  i°i,  ^""^  '"wrong''  with  his  permanent  superiors 
If  1  had  known  of  the  order,  short  work  would  have  been 
made  of  the  bureaucrat  who  issued  it.* 

"The  original  test  of  50  miles  in  three  days  did  a  very  great  deal  of  good.     It 


S6    THEODORK    ROOSKNKLT- AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHV 

In  no  country  with  an  army  worth  calling  such  is  there  a 
chance  for  a  man  physically  unfit  to  stay  in  the  service. 

decreased  by  thousands  of  dollars  the  money  expended  on  street  car  fare  and  bv  a 
much  greater  sum  the  amount  exrended  over  the  bar.  It  eliminated  a  number  of 
the  wholly  unfit;  >t  tauKht  officers  to  walk;  it  forced  them  to  learn  the  care  of 
their  feet  and  that  of  their  men;  and  it  improved  their  general  health  and  was 
rapidly  formiUL'  a  taste  for  physical  exercise." 

The  enclosed  letter  ran  in  part  as  follows:  — 

;■  I  am  returning  under  separate  cover  '  The  Soldier's  Foot  and  the  Military  Shoe  ' 
I  he  book  contains  knowledge  of  a  practical  character  that  is  v  iluable' f,.r  tl>i. 
n.en   who   H.WK    TO    .M.VRCIF.   WHO    II.WK    SIFF FR F  )    FROM    K^^ 

'•The  words  in  c.ipilals  express,  according  to  mv  idea,  the  gist  of  the  whole 
matter  as  regards  military  men. 

"The  army  officer  whose  men  break  down  on  test  gets  a  black  eve.     The  one 
wfio.se  men  show  efficiency  in  this  respect  gets  a  bouquet. 

..  "'}'"  *"<^h  '"^'"  the  book  is  invaluable.  There  is  no  danger  that  thev  will  neglect 
It  I  ficy  will  actually  learn  it,  for  exactly  the  same  reasons  that  our  fellows  learn 
the  gunnery  instructions  --  or  did  learn  them  before  they  were  withdrawn  and 
nurnt'u. 

•ri." ^  Ml  !'  ,'  '""S  "'" .'"■''"  *''''■  *"  '"ti''-<'st  a  single  naval  officer  in  this  fine  book 
hey  will  I<x.k  at  the  pictures  and  say  it  is  a  g<Mxl  book,  but  thev  won't  read  it 
llie  marine  officers.  ,m  the  contrary,  are  very  much  interested,  because  thev  have 
to  teach  their  men  to  cm-  for  their  feet  and  they  must  know  how  to  care  fo'r  their 
own.  But  the  naval  officers  feel  no  such  necessity,  simply  because  their  men  do  not 
have  to  demonstrate  their  efficiency  by  practice  marches,  and  thev  themselves  do 
not  have  to  do  a  stunt  that  will  show  up  their  own  ignorance  and  inefficiency  in  the 

"For  example,  some  time  ago  I  was  talking  with  some  chaps  about  shoes  —  the 
necessity  of  having  them  long  enough  and  wide  enough,  etc..  and  one  of  ,hcm  said  • 
1  have  no  use  f,>r  such  sh(K-s.  as  1  never  walk  except  when  I  have  to.  and  any  old 
shoes  do  tor  the  lO-mile-a-month  stunt,'  so  there  vou  are  I 

"When  the  first  test  vvas  ordered,  Fdmonston '(Washington  sh<x-  man)  told  me 
that  he  sold  more  real  walking  sh.x-s  to  naval  officers  in  three  months  than  he  had 
in  the  three  preceding  years.  I  know  three  officers  who  lost  both  big-toe  nails 
after  the  first  test,  and  another  who  waike  1  nine  miles  in  practice  with  a  pair  of 
heavy  walking  sh.K;s  that  were  tf>o  small  and  was  laid  up  for  three  davs  -  could  not 
come  to  the  office.  1  know  plenty  of  men  who  after  the  first  test  had  to  borrow 
shoes  fro:n  larger  men  until  their  feet  'went  down'  to  their  normal  size 

'••  Ihis  test  may  have  been  a  bit  t<K)  strenuous  for  old  hearts  (of  men  who  had 
never  tak.n  any  exerciser,  b..'  it  was  excellent  as  a  matter  of  instruction  and  train- 
ing of  liandiing  feet  —  and  ii,  an  emergency  (such  as  we  soon  may  have  in  Mexico) 
sound  hearts  are  not  much  b.vhI  if  the  feet  won't  stand. 

"However,  the  ij-mile  test  in  two  days  each  quarter  answered  the  same  pur- 
pose, for  the  reason  that  i;]  miles  will  produce  sore  feet  with  bad  shoes,  and  sore 
feet  .ind  lame  muscles  even  with  gcxnl  sh.K-s.  if  there  has  been  no  practice  marching 
It  was  the  necessity  of  doing  lij  MORF  MII.F.S  0\  TIU-  SFCOM)  n\V 
W?TH  SORK  FKF.r  .\XD  LANIK  .\U  SCl.FS  that  maie'em  sit  up  and "aVe 
n_,ticc  — made  em  practice  walking,  made  'em  avoid  street  cars,  buy  proiHT 
shoes,  show  some  curiosity  about  sox  and  the  care  of  the  feet  in  general. 


THE   VIGOR   OF   LIFE  ^y 

?n  ^" -.7,  ^^^..rr.H':  '-.s  ^£™r,L"  Is' 

.  I  have  mentioned  all  these  experiences   and  I  rnuM  .!, 
t.on  scores  of  others,  because  oSt  of  th'm'g'ei  my  phTos-" 

onhv~^rK  PI  "'••'  ""'''''  '"  P^--^  caused  by  my  ph  os- 
oph>  -^- of  bodily  vigor  as  a  method  of  getting  that  W 
of  soul  vvithout  which  vigor  of  the  body  counts'for  'oth  S 
The  dweller  in  cit.es  has  less  chance  than  the  dvveller  in  the 
country  to  keep  his  body  sound  and  vigorous  But  he  ca' 
do  so,  If  only  he  will  take  the  trouble.  ^Vny  young  lawy";! 

As^niJfcSr^^f  'rc;;^d;.lii::S^.°'  Tlr  "v*:  '^""'^  ^  -"••'!' 

involved  a  tramp  on  the  sore  fee,  ~  ''"'  ''"■"  '^""''^"^  '^  ''"^  »'^=°"d  dav 

consequence  is  that  the^  Jon"  do  i,       '  "'•'  ''""  '  ''"^'^  '">  ^"'^  ^^e  natural 

rca;';7tre:;^;r^^:i;:^H?r  ;S:;t„Tt^:-^^^  t  "'"^-^  ^'v^"  '^  — -  - 

who  have  motors  do  no  do  so  much  Tl  '''^ 7"'^^"^"  !"  their  offices.  Some 
tails  instead  and  are  peninR  beefv  and  'In^L'  T  ""t'?""  J^'^  '^^'  ^"^k- 
remedv  this  state  of  affairs  •  ^  "'''•'   ^"'^  ^"^ethmg  should  be  done  to 

uJiCui^^:^z  iLSJ^itrth'^^''^^'.^  ^r^^-  •r^'^-  '^eir 

the  danger  of  being  selected  out  ^  '•'   '"'^  ^"^'-    '"  ""^"^^  «°  ^void 

-n;So!irir;::::J,:'^ir r '^'ji^i^lr  ;)i"nV"  ^^"^-^  "^ '"™?''-- «"  ^^^ 

Secretary  to  abandon  all  phcal  tests  Ifl^  '""■•/  ""^""".""^'v  ^'^vised  the 
take  the  advice.  P">s>cal  tests.     He,  a  cr.'tlian,  was  wise  enough  not  to 

exe^cisrtf  pa':i'r:^^,roirln"onvS'^'  ^'^V^""!,'^  """''"^  "«"-  ^"  '^"^^  efficient 

thatVime\''e1e^if^t'Tacl,'o/bl': bh'''"'\'°  >"^-  "^"''  «""''«  -'  ^he  end  of 
opinion  ..gainst  thL  sort^^\'ht'to^^;d\^^  l^J^^I^  "^  '^^^  "^^'   ^^  -vice 

doned;not  throuTh  pen^sitr;;'^?™,^^^^^^  ''"7  ""'^  ^ft"wards  aban- 

to  understand  the  need  of  d  eLr^Hni     •      V  ""^  '^■'r°'\^^  weakness,  and  inabilitv 
to  be  properly  me\"Sen:  rirt^ra"  ive.'*'"""'  '^  '^^  -"?-cies  of  war  are 


S8    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

shopkeeper,  or  clerk,  or  shop-assistant  can  keep  himself  in 
good  condition  if  he  tries.  Some  of  the  best  men  ^rho  have 
ever  served  under  me  in  the  National  Guard  and  m  my  regi- 
ment were  former  clerks  or  floor-walkers.  Why,  Johnny 
Hayes,  the  Marathon  victor,  and  at  one  time  world  cham- 
pion, one  of  my  valued  friends  and  supporters,  was  a  floor- 
walker in  Bloomingdale's  big  department  store.  Surely 
with  Johnny  Hayes  as  an  example,  aiy  young  man  in  a 
city  can  hope  to  make  his  body  all  that  a  vigorous  man's 
body  should  be. 

I  once  made  a  speech  to  which  I  gave  the  title  "The 
Strenuous  Life."  Afterwards  I  published  a  volume  of 
essays  with  this  for  a  title.  There  were  two  translations  of 
.It  which  always  especially  pleased  me.  One  was  by  a 
Japanese  oflScer  who  knew  English  well,  and  who  had  car- 
ried the  essay  all  through  the  Manchurian  campaign,  and 
later  translated  it  for  the  benefit  of  his  countrymen.  The 
other  was  by  an  Italian  lady,  whose  brother,  an  officer  in 
the  Italian  army  who  had  died  on  duty  in  a  foreign  land, 
had  also  greatly  liked  the  article  and  carried  it  round  with 
him.  In  translating  the  title  the  lady  rendered  it  in  Italian 
as  Figor  di  Vita.  I  thought  this  translation  a  great  improve- 
ment on  the  original,  and  have  always  wished  that  I  had 
myself  used  "The  Vigor  of  Life"  as  a  heading  to  indicate  what 
I  was  trying  to  preach,  instead  of  the  heading  I  actually 
did  use. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  success,  or  rather  two  kinds  of 
ability  displayed  in  the  achievement  of  success.  There  is, 
first,  the  success  either  in  big  things  or  small  things  which 
comes  to  the  man  who  has  in  him  the  natural  power  to  do 
what  no  one  else  can  do,  and  what  no  amount  of  training, 
no  perseverance  or  will  power,  will  enable  any  ordinary  man 
to  do.  This  success,  of  course,  like  every  other  kind  of  suc- 
cess, may  be  on  a  very  big  scale  or  on  a  small  scale.  The 
quality  which  the  man  possesses  may  be  that  which  enables 
him  to  run  a  hundred  yards  in  nine  and  three-fifths  seconds, 
or  to  play  ten  separate  games  of  chess  at  the  same  time  blind- 
folded, or  to  add  five  columns  of  figures  at  once  without 
effort,  or  to  write  the  "  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn,"  or  to  deliver  the 


THE  VIGOR  OF  LIFE 


59 


Gettysburg  speech,  or  to  show  the  ability  of  Frederick  at 
Leuthen  or  Nelson  at  Trafalgar.     No  amount  of  training 
of  body  or  mmd  would  enable  any  good  ordinary  man  to 
perform  any  one  of  these  feats.     Of  course  the  proper  per- 
formance of  each  implies  much  previous  study  or  trainme 
but  in  no  one  of  them  is  success  to  be  attained  save  by  the 
altog.  ther  exceptional  man  who  has  in  him  the  something 
additional  which  the  ordinary  man  does  not  have. 
,tt.-  ^"  the  most  striking  kind  of  success,  and  it  can  be 
attained  only  by  the  man  who  has  in  him  the  quality  which 
separates  him  in  kind  no  less  than  in  degree  from  his  fellows. 
But  much  the  commoner  type  of  success  in  every  walk  of 

^fn^  J^T'^/P^'^'t'-^J  ^F°"  ''  that  which  comes  to  the 
man  who  differs  from  his  fellows  not  by  the  kind  of  quality 
which  he  possesses  but  by  the  degree  of  development  which 
he  has  given  that  quality.  This  kind  of  success  is  open  to 
a  large  number  of  persons,  if  only  they  seriously  determine 
to  achieve  it.  It  is  the  kind  of  success  which  is  open  to  he 
fJm?f  M '"  °^  sound  body  and  fair  mind,  who  has  no 
reniarkable  mental  or  physical  attributes,  but  who  gets  just 

tLTr  /'  P°"'^'*' '"  ^}'^  ""^y  ""^  ^""'^  °"t  of  the  aptitudes 
that  he  does  possess.     It  is  the  only  kind  of  success  that  is 
open  to  most  of  us.     Yet  some  of  the  greatest  successes  in 
history  have  been  those  of  this  second  class  -  when  I  call 
^  second  class  I  am  not  running  it  down  in  the  least,  I  am 
merely  pointing  out  that  it  differs  in  kind  from  the  first  class 
lo  the  average  man  it  is  probably  more  useful  to  study  this 
second  type  of  success  than  to  study  the  first.     From  the 
study  of  the  first  he  can  learn  inspiration,  he  can  get  up  ift 
and  lofty  enthusiasm.     From  the  study  of 't  .  second  he  ?an 
It  he  chooses   find  out  how  to  win  a  similar  success  himself 
1  need  hardly  say  that  all  the  successes  I  have  ever  won 

ourhiST  U  ^^^^T"^  ^>'P^-  ^  "^^'^^  ^°"  anything  wTth- 
out  hard  labor  and  the  exercise  of  my  '  est  judgment  and  care- 
ful planning  and  working  long  in  advaice      Having  been 

fir^rt't*?''^'-''  '"^  '^'^^'"^'^  ^°y  I  ^'^'  ^'  ^  young  man  at 
first  both  nervous  and  distrustful  of  my  own  prowess  I 
had  to  train  myself  painfully  and  laboriously  not  merely 
as  regards  my  body  but  as  regards  my  sou^l  and  ^p  rit^ 


te    THEODORK    ROOSFA'EIT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHV 

\V  lifii  a  hdv  I  ri-ad  a  passajrc  in  oiu'  of  Marryat's  bf«)ks 
which  always  iriiprrssi-d  inc.  In  tins  passajji-  the  captain 
of  sonic  small  British  man-of-war  is  explaining'  jo  the  hero 
hf)W  to  acquire  the  quality  of  fearlessness.  He  says  that  at 
the(iutsct  almost  every  man  is  frightened  when  he  goes  into 
action,  but  that  the  course  to  follow  is  for  the  man  to  keep 
such  a  prip  on  himself  that  he  can  act  just  as  if  he  was  not 
frightened.  After  this  is  kept  up  long  enough  it  changes  from 
pretense  to  reality,  and  the  man  does  in  very  fact  become  fear- 
less by  sheer  dint  of  practicing  fearlessness  when  he  does  not 
feel  it.  (I  am  using  my  own  language,  not  Marryat's.) 
This  was  the  theory  upon  which  I  went.  'I'here  were  all 
kinds  of  things  of  which  I  was  afraid  at  first,  ranging  from 
grizzly  bears  to  "mean"  horses  and  gun-fighters;  but  by 
acting  as  if  I  was  not  afraid  I  gradually  ceased  to  be  afraid. 
Most  men  can  have  the  same  experience  if  they  choose. 
They  will  first  learn  to  bear  themselves  well  in  trials  which 
they  anticipate  and  which  they  school  themselves  in  advance 
to  meet.  After  a  while  the  habit  will  grow  on  them,  and 
they  will  behave  well  in  sudden  and  unexpected  emer- 
gencies which  come  upon  them  unawares. 

It  is  of  course  much  pleasantcr  if  one  is  naturally  fearless, 
and  I  envy  and  respect  the  men  who  are  naturally  fearless. 
But  it  is  a  good  thing  to  remember  that  the  man  who  does 
not  enjoy  this  advantage  can  nevertheless  stand  beside  the 
rnan  who  does,  and  can  do  his  duty  with  the  like  efficiency, 
if  he  chooses  to.  Of  course  he  must  not  let  his  desire  take  the 
form  merely  of  a  day-dream.  Let  him  dream  about  being 
a  fearless  man,  and  the  more  he  dreams  the  better  he  will  be, 
always  provided  he  does  his  best  to  realize  the  dream  in 
practice.  He  can  do  his  part  honorably  and  well  provided 
only  he  sets  fearlessness  before  himself  as  an  ideal,  schools 
himself  to  think  of  danger  merely  as  something  to  be  faced 
and  overcome,  and  regards  life  itself  as  he  should  regard  it, 
not  as  something  to  be  thrown  away,  but  as  a  pawn  to  be 
promptly  hazarded  whenever  the  hazard  is  warranted  by 
the  larger  interests  of  the  great  game  in  which  wc  are  all 
engaged. 


CHAPTER    MI 


PRACTICAI,    POLITICS 


dcm' 


law>> 

the  \ 
to  mv 
law,  like  nic 
repellent;  t 
"let  the  buyc 


W^!l.^^  !  ''-ft  ',1  -.rd,  I  lookup  the  study  of  law. 
'i  I  uti  '>.  ,i  1  i  iently  fortunate  to  come  under 
r  "H-  wi  Jiiiij.c  ,  of  the  Harvard  Law  School, 
••  'i\  .  -Il  So  tl  I  Would  have  realized  that  the 
'^  '  f,  vu\  K  I  .  justice  and  against  legalism. 
I's.  fi!'  I'v  tl  .uugh  my  own  fault,  some  of 
'  .c  i.i\.  l<o>« 's  and  of  the  classroom  seemed 
I',  i  -t  il- <tic''  The  caveat  emptor  side  of  the 
urrai  >■} .  %;»•  side  of  business,  seemed  to  me 
:  not  in;  tie  for  social  fair  dealing.  The 
.Tc"'  .uaxim,  when  translated  into  actual 
practice,  whether  in  law  or  business,  tends  to  translate  itself 
further  into  the  seller  making  his  profit  at  the  expense  of  the 
buyer,  instead  of  by  a  bargain  which  shall  be  to  the  profit 
of  both.  It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  the  law  was  framed  to 
discourage  as  it  should  sharp  practice,  and  all  other  kinds 
of  bargains  except  those  which  are  fair  and  of  benefit  to 
both  sides.  I  was  young;  there  was  much  in  the  judgment 
which  I  then  formed  on  this  matter  which  I  should  now 
revise;  but,  then  as  now,  many  of  the  big  corporation 
lawyers,  to  whom  the  ordinary  members  of  the  bar  then  as 
now  looked  up,  held  certain  standards  which  were  difficult 
to  recognize  as  compatible  with  the  idealism  I  suppose 
every  high-minded  young  man  is  pt  to  feel.  If  I  had  been 
obliged  to  earn  every  cent  I  spent  should  have  gone  whole- 
heartedly into  the  business  of  .aaking  both  ends  meet, 
and  should  have  taken  up  the  law  or  any  other  respectable 
occupation  for  I  then  held,  and  now  hold,  the  belief  that 
a  man's  first  duty  is  to  pull  his  own  weight  and  to  take  care 

6i 


62    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  those  dependent  upon  him ;  and  I  then  believed,  and  now 
believe,  that  the  greatest  privilege  and  greatest  duty  for 
any  man  is  to  be  happily  married,  and  that  no  other  form 
ot  success  or  service,  for  either  man  or  woman,  can  be  wisely 
accepted  as  a  substitute  or  alternative.  But  it  happened  that 
1  had  been  left  enough  money  by  my  father  not  to  make  it 
necessary  for  me  to  think  solely  of  earning  bread  for  myself 
and  my  fami  y.  I  had  enough  to  get  bread.  What  I 
had  to  do  if  I  wanted  butter  and  jam,  was  to  provide  the 
butter  and  jam,  but  to  count  their  cost  as  compared  with 
other  things.  In  other  words,  I  made  up  my  mind  that,  while 
I  must  earn  money,  I  could  afford  to  make  earning  money 

1?T  u^Tu^r^  '"'^^^"^  °^  ^^*^  P"'"«'y  ol'i*^"  of  my  career. 
It  1  had  had  no  money  at  all,  then  my  first  duty  would  have 
been  to  earn  it  in  any  honest  fashion.  As  I  had  some  money 
1  telt  that  my  need  for  more  money  was  to  be  treated  as  a 
secondary  need  and  that  while  it  was  my  business  to  make 
niore  money  where  I  legitimately  and  properly  could,  yet 
that  It  was  also  my  business  to  treat  other  kinds  of  work  as 
more  important  than  money-making. 

Almost  immediately  after  leaving  Harvard  in  i88o  I  began 

o  take  an  interest  in  politics.     I  did  not  then  believe,  fnd 

I  do  not  now  believe   that  any  man  should  ever  attempt  to 

make  politics  his  only  career.     It  is  a  dreadful  misfortune 

wkJ  T"  ■"  ^'T  ^''>^'  ^^^^  h'"  whole  livelihood  and 
whole  happiness  depend  upon  his  staying  in  office.  Such  a 
^el.ng  prevents  him  from  being  of  real  service  to  the  people 
while  in  office,  and  always  puts  him  under  the  heaviest 
strain  of  pressure  to  barter  his  convictions  for  the  sake  of 
holding  office.  A  man  should  have  some  other  occupation 
-  I  had  several  other  occupations  -  to  which  he  can  resort 
It  at  any  time  he  is  thrown  out  of  office,  or  if  at  any  time  he 

ro.uhVu''T^'^  'u  ^^"^'^  ^  ^°""^  which  will  probably 
result  in  his  being  thrown  out,  unless  he  is  willing  to  stay  in 
at  cost  to  his  conscience. 

At  that  day,  in  i88o,  a  young  man  of  my  bringing  up  and 

ioin  it  r;.  """a'^  l^^'r/"'^   '^'    Republican    par^ty,^  and 

t  th.i      4f/^°;dingly  did      It   was   no  simple  thing  to  join 

>t  then.    That  was  long  before  the  era  of  ballot  reform  and 


PRACnCAL  POLITICS 


63 


the  control  of  primaries ;  long  before  the  era  when  we  realized 
that  the  Government  must  take  official  notice  of  the  deeds 
and  acts  of  party  organizations.  The  party  was  still  treated 
as  a  private  corporation,  and  in  each  district  the  organization 
formed  a  kind  of  social  and  political  club.  A  man  had  to  be 
regularly  proposed  for  and  elected  into  this  club,  just  as 
into  any  other  club.  As  a  friend  of  mine  picturesquely 
phrased  It,  I  "had  to  break  into  the  organization  with  a 

J  iiiiiiiy » 

Under  these  circumstances  there  was  some  difficultv  in 
joining  the  local  organization,  and  considerable  amusement 
and  excitement  to  be  obtained  out  of  it  after  1  had  joined 

It  was  over  thirty-three  years  ago  that  I  thus  became  "a 
rn"^."r-f  ^'l^T^^nty-first  District  Republican  Association 
ZXZ  I  ^"^^^•■^,  The  men  I  knew  best  were  the 
men  in  the  clubs  of  social  pretension  and  the  men  of  culti- 

r,  to  rh  '  t""^  T^  ''^"V  J^'^""  ^  ^^«^"  ^°  '"^ke  inquiries 
as  to  the  whereabouts  of  the  local  Republican  Association 
and  the  means  of  joining  it,  these  men  -  and  the  b°g 
business  men  and  lawyers  also  -  laughed  at  me,  and  told 
me  that  politics  were  "low";  that  the  organiza  ions  were 

TsdZt^'^  ^^  ''gentlemen";  that  I  wou'd  indXm Tun 
by  saloon-keepers,  horse-car  conductors,  and  the  like,  and  not 
by  men  with  any  of  whom  I  would  come  in  contact  outside  • 
and,  moreover,  they  assured  me  that  the  men  I  met  would  be 

thaf  if?hf  *■"'''  '"•'^  unpleasant  to  deal  with.  I  answered 
that  if  this  were  so  it  merely  meant  that  the  people  I  knew 
did  not  belong  to  the  governing  class,  and  that  the  otheT 

cl^l  t^r^u^  '^''  ^  'T'''^'^  ^°  l'^  «"-  of  the  governing 
clas  ;  that  if  they  proved  too  harJ-bit  for  me  I  supposed  f 
would  have  to  quit,  but  that  I  certainly  would  not  qui 
until  I  had  made  the  eflfort  and  found  oul  whether  I  reaHv 
was  too  weak  to  hold  my  own  in  the  rough  and  turible  "^ 
1  he  Repubhcan  Association  of  which  I  became  a  member 

^rnl,   k       u  ^'  furniture  was  of  the  canonical   kind  • 

dingy  benches,  spittoons,  a  dais  at  one  end  with  a  table  and 
chair  and  a  stout  pitcher  for  iced  water,  and  on  the  walls 
pictures  of  General  Grant,  and  of  Levi  P.  Morton,  to  wrJse 


64    THKODORE   ROOSEV  KLT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Kcncrosity  we  owed  the  room.  We  had  regular  meetings 
once  or  twice  a  month,  and  between  times  the  pla.c  was 
treated,  at  least  on  certain  nights,  as  a  kind  of  club-room. 
I  went  around  there  often  enough  to  have  the  men  get 
accustomed  to  me  and  to  have  me  gel  accustomed 
to  them,  so  that  we  began  to  speak  the  same  language, 
and  so  that  each  could  begin  to  live  down  in  the 
other's  mind  what  Bret  Harte  has  called  "the  defective 
moral  quality  of  being  a  stranger."  It  is  not  often  that  a 
man  can  make  opportunities  for  himself.  But  he  can  put 
himself  in  such  shape  that  when  or  if  the  opportunities  come 
he  is  ready  to  take  advantage  of  them.  This  was  what 
happened  to  me  in  connection  with  my  experiences  in  Morton 
Hall.  1  soon  became  on  good  terms  with  a  number  of  the 
ordinary  "heelers"  and  even  some  of  ihe  mil  -r  leaders. 
The  big  leader  was  Jake  Hess,  who  treatea  me  with 
rather  distant  affability.  There  were  prominent  lawyers 
and  business  men  who  belonged,  but  ihev  took  little  part 
in  tlie  actual  meetings.  What  thev  did  was  done  elsewhere 
I  he  running  ol  the  machine  was  left  to  Jake  Hess  and  his 
captains  of  tens  and  of  hundreds. 

Among  these  lesser  captains  I  s.  on  struck  up  a  friendship 
with  Joe  Murray,  a  friendship  which  is  as  strong  now  as  it 
was  thirty-three  years  ago.  He  had  been  born  in  Ireland 
but  brought  to  New  'i  ork  bj-  his  parents  when  he  was  three 
or  four  years  old,  and,  as  he  expressed  it,  "raised  as  a  bare- 
footed boy  on  First  Avenue."  When  not  eighteen  he  had 
enlisted  m  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and  taken  part  in  the 
campaign  that  closed  the  Civil  War.  Then  he  came  back 
to  I- irst  Avenue,  and,  being  a  fearless,  powerful,  energetic 
young  fellow,  careless  and  reckless,  speedilv  grew  to  some 
prominence  as  leader  of  a  gang.  In  that  district,  and  at  that 
time,  politics  was  a  rough  business,  and  Tammanv  Hall 
held  unquestioned  sway.  The  district  was  overwhelminglv 
Democratic,  and  Joe  and  his  friends  were  Democrats  who  on 
election  day  performed  the  usual  gang  work  for  the  local 
Democratic  leader,  whose  business  it  was  to  favor  and 
reward  them  in  return.  This  same  local  leader,  like  many 
other  greater  leaders,  became  puffed  up  by  prosperity,  and 


PRACTICAI-   POLITICS  65 

forgot   tlu-   instriirnerits    throueh    which    h..    h.A        u- 

to  his  gang  his  purposes  and  the  necesfftv  «f  k  •    '^      " 
Accordingly  thcv   wait.-d  f^r  t»,  •    "*^'^*^^'>'^>  "^  being  quiet. 

the  day  a  di^.ric;  „  1       ,  "f     '  "?■  '.'"'  "■  ""^  <•"<!  "' 
than  Z„  .,;,,"  ~r  1     If"?"  '"'I^'-'"  .PoUcd  more 

abo;,.evc.„bo.>vc™Xtrpar.i:.:  ™''  "^P""'^"  ''"''= 

The  ..i  i  -  ,its,  .^;ts'^  li^^j^s,:-:  ,'r 


(/.     IHKODORK    ROOSKAKl.T       A\     \l' lOMKK  iR  \|>||V 


pl;ii'c  like  Miiitoii 
I  l.ili,  .md  I  iic  inni 
will)  ir<.ri\  111  liiiH 
were  akin  li>  those 
ulio  had  leatU'iship 
ill  Morton  I  lall  ;  but 
in  jof's  ryrs  lluy 
slooti  tor  a  hijjhcr 
ci\  ili/.atioii,  for  op- 
poiliiiiit  \  ,  foi  m'rut- 
oiis  ii-cc)^iiilioii  of 
siicti-sstiil  ctfort 
in  short,  for  all  tin- 
thing's  that  an  caircr 
_\'.)iini:  man  dt'sins. 
\Il'  was  ri'(.fi\  I'd  and 
patted  on  tiie  back 
by  a  man  who  was  a 
great  man  to  tlie 
world  in  which  he 
lived.  Hewasintro- 
duceil  to  the  audi- 
ence as  a  youn^j  man 
wht)se  achie\ement 
was  such  as  to  pn  itii- 
ise  much  tor  thi' 
future,  antl  more- 
oxer  lie  was  gi\en  a 
place  in  the  post- 
office  as  I  ha\e 
said,  this  wasloiij; be- 
fore the  day  of  C'i\il 
Ser\  ice  Reform. 

Xow,  to  the  w  rong 
kind  ol  man  all  this 
might  ha\i'  meant 
notiiing  at  all.  But 
in  Joe  Murra\ 's  case  it  meant  ever\  thing.  He  was  by 
nature   as    straight    a    man,    as    fearless    and     as     stanchh- 


JilSII'H    .\llKRAN 

"By  iialurc  a  >lrai>:ht  ni.m.  as  fi-.irlo^  ami  a^  staiulily 
loyal  as  any  oiu'  ivhiini  1  liavi-  ivir  nu-l  a  ni.ui  In  In 
IrustiHl  in  :in\  im^iiiun  .li  m.irnliiiK  loiiraKc.  iiitfKrit\. 
aiul  KimmI  failli.  ' 


PKAC'IICAI.   POLITICS 


67 


loyal,  as  any  one  wliom  I  have  ever  met,  a  man  to  he 
triistecl  in  any  position  demanding  courage,  integritv,  and 
Ko-'d  lai  ii.  He  did  Ins  duty  in  the  public  service-,  and 
became  devotedly  attached  K,  the  organization  which  he  felt 
had  given  him  Ins  chance  in  life.  When  I  knew  him  he  was 
a  ready  making  his  way  up  ;  one  of  the  proofs  and  evidences 
ot  vyhich  was  that  he  owned  a  first-class  racing  ..  tter- 
•Mice   Lane  juhmd  which   he  gave  me  more  than  one 

^p.n       During  tin.  hrst  winter  I  grew  f.  like  foe  and  his  par- 

u  urned  he  hk.ng,  .nd  ,n  the  hrst  row  we  had  in  the  organi- 
zation (which  arosenver  a  m.,vement,  that  j  backed,  to  stand 
riei;  ;'.""7^'7'^^''.' '"^•"'•'\f  of  .^^treet-cleaning)  joe  and  all  his 
trends  s.ond  stiffly  with  the  machine,  and  mv  side,  the 
>■«:(">■">  Mdr,  was  left  with  only  some  half-dozen'  ^•,.tes  out 
"'  '"•^-;';-  ''HU-  I'-n.dred.  I  had  expected  no  other  out- 
come and  look  It  go,,d-luim.uedly.  but  wilh,.ut  chanuinvr  mv 
al  t  It  uuc.  '" 

Next  lall    aM  he  elections  drew  near,  joe  ihouw'ht  he  would 
like  to  make  a  drive  at   Jake   Hess,  and  after  considerable 
panning  deeded   that   his  best   chance  lav   in   the  Hght     ,  r 
'"■.".'"•""^'tioi,    to   the   Assembly,    the    lower   house   of   ,he 
•egis  a  ure.      He  picked  me  as  the  candidate  with  whom  he 
u...ild  be  mos,   l.key   ,0  win;  and  win  he  did.      [,   uas  „. 
my  hght,  1,  was  joe's :  and  i,  was  to  him  that  I  owe  un-  en  rv 
n..^.htics       I    had    a,    ,ha,    time   neither   the   reputa    .  n 
nor   Uu    abihty    „,    have    wo„    ,1,,.    nominati.m    for   mvself 
and  indeed  never  would  have  thought  of  trving  for  it'         ' 
jak.'  Hess  was  entirely  good-humored  abrnit  it.      In  spite 

fric-nai^!!:i  ;"'"-"^"''''r-  ">>    'r'^'--'^  ^^ith  l.im  had  Ln 

mndi^    and  human,  and  when  he  was  beaten  he  turned  in 

-  iH.lp  joe  elect  me.      A,  iirst  they  though,  ,he^•  would  lake 

Me  on  a  personal  canvass  thn.ugh   ,he  sal.ums'  along  .Sixth 

Avenue       I  he   canvass,   however,  did   no,   las,    b.-vcmd  'he 


saloon.      ,    u;,,    Milroduced    wi,h    proper    solemn!, v    to 
""on-keeper        a    \erv    iiuporlan,    personage,    lor', his 


hrs, 
the 

u..^  before  tlu-daxs  u  |un  saU.n-k-ep^rs  becluiiV  "nu.;dv 
'J'^-  mortgaged  cha,,els  of  ,|,e  brewers  and  he  be.a,  . 
c.oss-exanune  nie.  a  li,,le  ,00  niuch  in  ,he  tone  of    .,;   who 


68    IHKODORE    ROOSFAF.IT-  AX    ALTOBIOGRAPHV 


was  dealing  with  a  suppliant  for  his  favor.  He  said  he 
expected  that  I  would  of  course  treat  the  liquor  business 
fairly;  to  which  I  answered,  none  too  cordially,  that  I 
hoped  I  should  treat  all  interests  fairly.  He  then  said  that 
he  regarded  the  licenses  as  too  high ;  to  which  I  responded 
that  I  believed  they  were  really  not  high  enough,  and  that 
1  should  try  to  have  them  made  higher.  The  conversation 
threatened  to  become  stormy.  Messrs.  Murray  and  Hess, 
on  some  hastily  improvised  plea,  took  me  out  into  the  street, 
and  then  Joe  explained  to  me  that  it  was  not  worth  my 
while  staying  in  Sixth  Avenue  any  longer,  that  I  had  better 
go  right  back  to  Fifth  Avenue  and  attend  to  my  friends  there, 
and  that  he  would  look  after  my  interests  on  Sixth  Avenue. 
I  was  triumphantly  elected. 

Once  before  Joe  had  interfered  in  similar  fashion  and 
secured  the  nomination  of  an  Assemblyman;  and  shortly 
after  election  he  had  grown  to  feel  toward  this  Assemblyman 
that  he  must  have  fed  on  the  meat  which  rendered  Csesar 
proud,  as  he  became  inaccessible  to  the  ordinary  mortals 
whose  place  of  resort  was  Morton  Hall.  He  eyed  me  warily 
for  a  short  time  to  see  if  1  was  likely  in  this  respect  to  follow 
in  my  predecessor's  footsteps.  Finding  that  I  did  not, 
he  and  all  my  other  friends  and  supporters  assumed  toward 
me  the  very  pleasantest  attitude  that  it  was  possible  to 
assume.  They  did  not  ask  me  for  a  thing.  They  accepted 
as  a  matter  of  course  the  view  that  I  was  absolutely  straight 
and  was  trying  to  do  the  best  I  could  in  the  Legislature. 
They  desired  nothing  except  that  I  should  make  a  success, 
and  they  supported  me  with  hearty  enthusiasm.  I  am  a 
little  at  a  loss  to  know  quite  how  to  express  the  quality  in 
my  relationship  with  Joe  Murray  and  my  other  friends  of 
this  period  which  rendered  that  relationship  so  beneficial  to 
me.  When  I  went  into  politics  at  this  time  I  was  not  con- 
scious of  going  in  with  the  set  purpose  to  benefit  other  people, 
but  of  getting  for  myself  a  privilege  to  which  I  was  entitled 
in  common  with  other  people.  So  it  was  in  my  relationship 
with  tlu'sc  men.  If  there  had  lurked  in  the  innermost 
recesses  of  my  mind  anywhere  the  thought  that  I  was  in 
some  way  a  patron  or  a  benefactor,  or  was  doing  something 


PRACTICAL   POLITICS  69 

iK.bIc  by  taking  part  in  politics,  or  that  Ic-xpccted  the  smallest 
consideration  save  what  I  could  earn  on  mv  own  merits  I 
am  certain  that  somehow  or  other  the  existence  of  that  feel- 
ing would  have  been  known  and  resented.  As  a  matter  of 
tact,  there  was  not  the  slightest  temptation  on  my  part  to 
have  any  such  feehng  or  any  one  of  such  feelings  I  no 
more  expected  special  consideration  in  politics  than  I  would 
have  expected  u  .n  the  boxing  ring.  I  wished  to  act  squarely 
to  others,  and  I  wished  to  be  able  to  show  that  I  could  hold 
my  own  as  against  others.     The  attitude  of  my  new  friends 

oTVrL7   T   ^'''  ""Z  "^  P°''^^  '•'-^^^•"'^'    ^"d  then   tha 
of    friendly   alliance.     Afterwards   I    became    admitted    to 

comradeship     and  then  to  leadership.     I    need  hardly  say 

how   earnestly    I   believe   that    men   should    have    a  ^keen 

and   lively  sense  of  their  obligations   in   politics,   of  their 

duty  to  help  forward  great  causes,  and  to  strugg  e  for  the 

betterment  of  conditions  that  are  unjust  to  their  fellows     he 

men  and  women  who  are  less  fortunate  in  life.     BuHraddi! 

w  th  the  other  men  and  women  engaeod  in  the  same  task 
el  owsh.p  of  work  with  fun  to  vary  the  work  ;  for  unlTss  there 
s  this  feclingof  fcl  owship,of  commonefforton  anequal  plane 
fo  a  common  end.  it  will  be  difficult  to  keep  the-  relations 
wholesome  and  natural.  To  be  patronized  is  as  offensive 
as  to  be  insulted.  No  one  of  us  cares  permanentiv  to  have 
some   one   else   conscientiously    striving   to   do   him   go^d 

oTotTo7T  "  '"  ""^'  "^';  '''''  -^""^^  °-'  ^'-  foMhe'g'od 
can  h.  n^fit     ~  ^"•'  """"  ^''l  ^P'^^^^ily  find  that  other  people 

.\t ither  Joe  Murray  nor  I  nor  any  of  our  associates  at 
that  time  were  alive  to  social  and  industrial  need  which 
we  now  all  of  us  recognize.  But  we  then  had  very  c^arlv 
before  our  minds  the  need  of  practically  appIyS  certa  n 
elemental  virtues,  the  virtues  of  honesty  and  efficincv  in 
politics,    the  virtue  of  efficiency  side  by  side  wi?^,  Sstv 

rnd'"f;rd:ann^"""K"'^  ^"•^^'^'^^  ^•'^'"-' ^  "ns-JraS 

and   fair  dealing  in   business   as   between   man   and   man 
and  especially  as  between  the  man  who  is  a^empbver  ind 
the  man  who  is  an  employee.     On  all  fundamenrarquesti!;;i^ 


70     •mi;()l")()RK    ROOSlAKir       AN    AirOHKHlRAPin 


|<n'  \lmia\  ;iml  I  ilmn^'lii  alikt-.  \\ V  iifxii  parirj  iiiiiip.iiiy 
rxiipliii^' (111  till- i|msti(iii  (>rC'i\il  Si  r\  iif  KrlDiin,  uluri-  lie 
siiKiivl)  till  that  I  sliowtd  ditctriiiaiif  atHiiilii>,  that  I 
sicUd  with  thr  phaiisccs.  Wc  j;<)t  l)atk  a^'ain  iiiln  dose 
relations  as  soon  as  1  became  Police  Commissioner  iiiuler 
.\la\i)r  Strong',  tor  joe  was  then  made  I'lxeise  C'ontmissioner, 
and  was,  I  believe,  the  best  Kxcise  Commissioner  the 
eit\  of  New  ^'ork  ever  had.  lie  is  iKtw  a  farmer,  his 
bojs  have  been  through  Columbia  College,  and  he  and  I 
look  at  the  questions,  political,  social,  and  industrial,  .vhich 
confront  us  in  1913  from  practicall)-  the  same  standpoint, 
just  as  we  once  hioked  at  the  ciueslions  that  confronted  us 
in  iSSi. 

There  are  many  debts  that  I  owe  joe  Murray,  and  some 
for  which  he  was  only  unconsciously  responsible.  I  do  not 
think  that  a  man  i>  Hi  to  do  good  work  in  our  .Vnuricaii 
deniocrac)-  unless  he  is  able  to  ha\e  a  geiiuin'.-  it'llow-feeling 
lor,  undirstanding  of,  and  s)  nipath)  with  his  fellow-. \meri- 
cans,  whatever  their  creed  or  their  birthplace,  the  section 
in  which  the>  live,  or  llu-  work  which  tlie>  do,  provided  they 
po^ses^  the  only  kind  ot  Americanism  that  really  counts, 
till'  .\inericanism  of  the  spirit.  It  was  no  small  lulp  to  me, 
in  the  etfi  irt  to  make  m\  sell  a  gooti  citi/i-ii  and  good  American, 
that  the  political  associate  with  whom  I  was  on  closest  and 
most  intimate  terms  during  in\-  earl\  years  was  a  man 
born  ill  Ireland,  by  creed  a  Catholic,  with  joe  .Murray's 
upbringing;  just  as  it  helpid  me  greati)-  at  a  later  period 
t<i  work  lor  certain  vitally  necessar\  public  needs  with  .\rthur 
Mill  Mrioeii,  ill  whom  the  spirit  of  the  ".\clit-und-\  ierziger" 
itli  alists  was  embodied  ;  just  as  my  whole  life  wa>  intlueiiced 
b\-  m\-  long  association  with  |ac(»b  Riis,  whom  I  am  templed 
to  call  the  best  Ami-riian  I  <'ver  knew,  although  he  was 
aln-ady  a  yixing  man  when  he  came  liither  fir)m  Denmark. 

I  was  elected  tw  the  Legislature  in  the  fall  of  iKSi,  and  found 
myself  the  \-ouiige>t  man  in  that  body.  I  was  reelected  the 
two  lollowing  year>.  Like  all  young  men  and  inexperienced 
members,  I  had  considerable  difficult)  in  teaching  inxself 
to  speak.  I  protitetl  much  by  the  ad\  ice  of  a  hard-headed 
old    countryman        who    was    unconscioiislv     fiarajihrasing 


PRACTICAL    I'OIJTKS  7, 

tlu-  Duke-  of  WelliuKtcn,    .vl,,.  ^vas  himself  doubtless  nara- 
plMas.UK  somebody  else.     The  adN  ice   ran  :    "  )   ,  "  speak 

just  vHi^r-^n'^  ^■""  '!'"•  T'^^^l""^  ^"  ->'  -d  Zt 

just  what  It  IS ;   then  say  it.  and  sit  down." 

Aly  hrst  days  ni  the  I.-islature  were  much  like  those  of  a 

boy  .n  a  stranjje  .chr,ol.     My  fc-llovv-leKislato      and      eved 

one    another    with    mutual    distrust.     Kach    of    us    chose 

h.s  seat    each  began  by  following  the  lead  of  som     ve         , 

"  the  firs    routine  matters,  and  then,  in  a  week  or  two    w 

the  "sifk  s,     L in  '•  '^^•'".'•^•'•^V''-     '  ^^^^  ^'  Republican  from 
York  '■'':, ^"^"^'"K     ^"^tnct,  the  wealthiest  district  in  New 

ciid  not  make  any  ef^.rtu,  ,e/ot;::U  ^^l:  ^    ^r"  wa 

ir  fi^n:::;:/tii:r"^^  '^ '-'' '-''  ^'^  '^ '-  --^^---^^n; 

A  very  short  experience  showed  me  that,  as  the  I  eeislatur,. 
was  then   constituted,   the  scKcalled   part  ■  co     est   haj  '  o 

c   Ll",i:;.  '"'  '""""  '•  '"""J'  "'"i  '">  '"""d'  found  .1, 
lu-  outsc-t  t,,  scr.-,p..  .uc|uai,„a„c.-.  an,„ni:  liu-  m  • ,      ,    fd 

p  r  ';iTi',"  .""■  .'^'I'l'i''---  Tiu.y  wc-n.  for  ,;:'„„ 

parr  rrom  the  count rv  districts 

'i'll\    (KNeill,    from    the    Adirondacks.      He    kept    •.    small 

^    l.-.u.   regard  to  the  n.achi,,,-.      He  had   ihoudu   he 

'       '  •         '■  ^^^7'.\''>'"^'>''  •^"  1h-  had  taken  hi^  Iuh'^v 

up.sct   the  local   ring,   and   came   to   the   Legislature  a. 


72    THKODORK    K(K)SK\  KIT  -  AN    AITOBKHIRAIMIV 

his  o'.vn  master.  There  is  surely  something  in  American 
traditions  that  does  tend  toward  rial  democracy  in  spite  of 
our  faults  and  shortcomings,  i  !i  most  other  countries  two 
men  of  as  different  antecedents,  iccstry,  and  surroundings 
as  Billy  O'Neill  and  I  would  ha  c  had  far  more  difficulty 
in  coming  together.     I  came  from  the  biggest  city  in  America 


MicRAri.  J.  COSTELLO. 

and  from  the  wealthiest  ward  of  that  city,  and  he  from  a 
backwoods  county  where  he  kept  a  store  at  a  crossroads. 
In  all  the  unimportant  things  we  seemed  far  apart.  But  in 
all  the  important  things  we  were  close  together.  We  looked 
at  all  questions  from  substantially  the  same  view-point, 
and  we  stood  shoulder  t<>  shoulder  in  every  legislative  tight 
during  those  three  years.     He  abhorred  demagogy  just  as 


PRACIKAI.   I'OMIICS 


7i 


hf  abhorred  corruption      Ih-  had  thought  much  on  political 

problems;    he  admired  Alexander  Hamilton  as  much  as  I 

did,  beuiK  a  strong  believer  i»  a  powerful  National  Kovern- 

ment ;   and  we  both  of  us  differed  from  Alexander  Hamilton 

in  being  stout  adherents  (,f  Abraham  Lincoln's  views  where- 

ever  the  rights  of  the  people  were  concerned.     Any  man  who 

has  met  with  success,  if  Ik-  will  be  frank  with  himself,  must 

admit  that  there  ha>  been  a  big  element  of  fortune  in  the 

success.     h>rtune    avored  me,  whereas  her  hand  was  heavy 

against  B.I  y  O  Ne.Ii.     All  his  life  he  had  to  strive  hard  to 

wring  his  bread  from  harsh  surroundings  and  a  reluctant 

ate;   if   ate  had  been  but  a  little  kinder,  I  believe  he  would 

have  had  a  great  political  career;    and  he  would  have  done 

good  service  f.,r  the  country  in  any  position  in  which  he 

might  have  been  put. 

There  were  other  Republicans,  like  Isaac  Hunt  and  lonas 
^an  Duzer  and  VValter  llowe  and  Henry  Sprague.  who  were 
among  my  dose  fnends  and  allies;  and  a  gigantic  one-eved 
veteran  of  the  Civ.l  War.  a  gallant  (leneral,  Curtis  from'St. 
Lawrence  Countv;  and  a  capital  fellow,  whom  afterwards, 
when  (.over nor,  I  put  on  the  bench,  Kruse,  from  Cattaraugus 

t  ic  onl)   C.erman  fn.m  Cattaraugus  County  at  that  time; 
and,  besides  being  a  (.erman,  he  was  also  a  l>rol,ibitionist. 

.Ncub„|d,   and    Ton.    Welch   of   .Niagara,    who  did   a   great 
service  in  getting  the  State  to  set  aside  .Niagara  Falls  Park 
atter    a    discouraging    experience    with    the    first    (Governor 
be  ore  whom  we  brought  the  bill,  who  listened  with  austere 

rnlTVnV;!''  •■"■^""^7^^^  '",  f^^"--  "f  the  State  establishing 

a  pa  k,  and  then  conclusively  answered  us  by  the  question. 

But,  j,entlemen,  why  should  we  spend  the  people's  money 

park  as  with  it  .'         Then  there  were  a  couple  of  members 
from   New   York   and    Brooklyn.    Mike   Costello   and    Pete 

waV'^^"!" ""  '".'^  ''''"'  r'^""'^'^'  ^'^  '•  '''^""oanN   man.    He 
ua    as    earless  as  he  w;as  honest.      He  came  from   Ireland 
and  had  accepted  the  Tammany   Fourth  „f  Julv  oration^ 


MICROCOPY    RESOLUTION    TEST   CHART 

I  ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    2| 


^     APPLIED  IIVMGE 


'6-'   f!]st    Ma  f-    ~^trpp( 

Rochesttr,    Ne«    lotk         U609       USA 

(716)    -.82  -  U30Q  -  Phont 

("6!    288  -  5989  -  F.]> 


74     rilKODORK    R()()SK\  laT-  AN    ArTOBKKIRAPIIV 


as  indicating  the  real  attitude  of  tliat  organization  towards 
the  rights  of  the  people.  A  month  or  two  in  Albany  con- 
verted him  to  a  profound  distrust  of  applied  Tammany 
methods.  He  and  I  worked  hand  in  hand  with  equal  indif- 
ference to  our  local  machines.  His  machine  leaders 
warned  him  fairly  that  they  would  throw  him  out  at  the 
next  election,  which  they  did ;  but  he  possessed  a  seasoned- 
hickory  toughness  of  ability  to  contend  with  adverse  cir- 
cumstances, and  kept  his  head  well  above  water.  A  better 
citizen  does  not  exist ;  and  our  friendship  has  never  faltered. 
Peter  Kelly's  fate  was  a  tragedy.  He  was  a  bright, 
well-educated  young  fellow,  an  ardent  believer  in  Henry 
George.  At  the  beginning  he  and  I  failed  to  understand 
each  other  or  to  get  on  together,  for  our  theories  of  govern- 
ment were  radically  opposed.  After  a  couple  of  months  spent 
in  active  contests  with  men  whose  theories  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  their  practices,  Kelly  and  I  found  in 
our  turn  that  it  reallv  did  not  make  much  difference  what 
our  abstract  theories  were  on  questions  that  were  not  before 
the  Legislature,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  on  the  actual  mat- 
ters before  the  Legislature,  the  most  important  of 
which  involved  questions  of  elementary  morality,  we  were 
heartily  at  one.  We  began  to  vote  together  and  act  to- 
gether, and  by  the  end  of  the  session  found  that  in  all 
practical  matters  that  were  up  for  action  we  thought  to- 
gether. Indeed,  each  of  us  was  beginning  to  change  his 
theories,  so  that  even  in  theory  we  were  coming  closer 
tf)gether.  He  was  ardent  and  generous;  he  was  a  young 
lawyer,  with  a  wife  and  children,  whose  ambition  had 
tempted  him  into  pf)litics,  and  who  had  been  befriended 
b}-  the  local  bosses  under  the  belief  that  they  could  count 
upon  him  for  anything  they  really  wished.  L  nfortunateh', 
what  they  realh'  wished  was  often  corrupt.  Kelly  defied 
them,  fought  the  battles  of  the  people  with  ardor  and 
good  faith,  and  when  the  bosses  refused  him  a  rcnomina- 
tion,  he  appealed  from  them  to  the  people.  When  we  both 
came  up  for  reelection,  I  won  easil\-  in  in\  tlistrict.  where 
circumstances  conspired  to  fa\or  nu- ;  and  Kelly,  with 
exactly  the  same  record  that  I  had,  except  that  it  was  more 


PRACTFCAL   POLITICS 


75 


nvJiKil>lr  because  lu    took   liis  slaiid  against   givater  oJds 
uas  Uaten  in  Ins  ilistiicl.      Defeat  to   me  would  have  i.ieaiit 
merely  cliagiin;  to  Kelly  it  meant  le.rible  material  disaster 
He  had  no  monej-.     Like  every  rigidly  honest  man,  he  had 
found  that  going  into  politics  was  expensive  and  that   his 
salary  as  Assemblyman  did  not  cover  the  financial  outgo. 
He  had  lost  his  practice  and  he  had  incurred  the  ill   will 
ot  the  pouertul,  so  that  it  was  impossible  at  the  moment  to 
pick  up  his  practice  again  ;  and  the  worrv  and  disappointment 
affected   him   so   much    that   shortly   after  election    he   was 
struck  down  by  sickness,     just  before  Christmas  some  of 
us  were  informed  that  Kelly  was  in  such  financial  straits 
that  he  and  his  family  would  be  put  out   into  the  street 
before   \ew  )  ear.     This  was  prevented  bv  the  action  of 
some  of  his  friends  who  had  served  with  him' in  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  he  recovered,  at  least  to  a  degree,  and  tck   up 
the  practice  of  his  profession.     But  he  was  a  broken  man. 
In  the  Legislature  m  which  he  served  one  -A  his  fellow-Demo- 
crats from  Brooklyn  was  the  Speaker -Alfred  C.  Chapin 
the   leader  and   the  foremost   representative  of  the   reform 
DemocracN-,  whom  Kelly  zealouslv  supported.     A  few  vears 
ater  Chapin,  a  very  able  man,  was  elected  Mavor  of  Brook- 
lyn on  a  reform  Democratic  ticket.     Shortlv  after  his  elec- 
tion I  was  asked  to  speak  at  a  meeting  in  a  Brooklyn  club  at 
which  various  prominent  citizens,  including  the  Mavor,  were 
present.      I  spoke  on  civic  decency,  and  toward  the  close  of 
my  speech  I  sketched  Kelly's  career  for  mj-   audience,  told 
t^iem  how  he   had  stood   up  for  the  rights  of   the  people  of 
Brooklyn,  and  how  the  people  had  failed  to  stand  up  for  him, 
and  the  way  he   had   been   punished,    preciselv   because   he 
had   been    a    good    citizen    who    acted    as  a 'good    citizen 
should  act.     I  ended  by  saying  that  the  reform  Democracy 
liad   now  come  into  power,  that  Mr.  Chapin   was  MaNor, 
and  uiat  1  very  earnestly  hoped  recognition  would  at  'last 
be  given   to   Kell>-    for    the    fight   he    had    waged    at  such 
bitter  cost  to   himself.       My  words  created    some  impres- 
sion, and  Mayor  Chapin  at  once  said  that   he  would  take 
care  of  Kelly  and  see  that  justice  was   done   him.     I    went 
home  that  evening  much  pleased.     In  the  morning,  at  break- 


76    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


fast,  I  received  a  brief  note  from  Chapin  in  these  words  : 
"II  was  nine  last  evening  when  you  finished  speaking  of 
what  Kelly  had  done,  and  when  I  said  that  I  would  take 
care  of  him.  At  ten  last  night  Kelly  died."  He  had  been 
dying  while  I  was  making  my  speech,  and  he  never  knew 
that  at  last  there  was  to  be  a  tardy  recognition  of  what  he  had 
done,  a  tardy  justification  for  the  sacrifices  he  had  made. 
The  man  had  fought,  at  heavy  cost  to  himself  and  with  entire 
disinterestedness,  for  popular  rights ;  but  no  recognition  for 
what  he  had  done  had  come  to  him  from  the  people,  whose 
interest  he  had  so  manfully  upheld. 

Where  there  is  no  chance  of  statistical  or  mathematical 
measurement,  it  is  very  hard  to  tell  just  the  degree  to  which 
conditions  change  from  one  period  to  another.  This  is 
peculiarly  hard  to  do  when  we  deal  with  such  a  matter  as 
corruption.  Personally  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  in 
public  life  we  are  on  the  whole  a  little  better  and  not  a  little 
worse  than  we  were  thirty  years  ago,  when  I  was  serving 
in  the  New  York  Legislature.  I  think  the  conditions  are  a 
little  better  in  National,  in  State,  and  in  municipal  politics. 
Doubtless  there  are  points  in  which  they  are  worse,  and  there 
is  an  enormous  amount  that  needs  reformation.  But  it 
does  seem  to  me  as  if,  on  the  whole,  things  had  slightly 
improved. 

When  1  went  into  politics.  New  York  City  was  under  the 
control  of  Tammany,  which  was  from  time  to  time  opposed 
by  some  other  —  and  evanescent  —  city  Democratic  organi- 
zation. The  up-country  Democrats  had  not  yet  fallen  under 
Tammany  sway,  and  were  on  the  point  of  developing  a  big 
country  political  boss  in  the  shape  of  David  B.  Hill.  The 
Republican  party  was  split  into  the  Stalwart  and  Half- 
Breed  factions.  Accordingly  neither  party  had  one  domi- 
nant boss,  or  one  dominant  machine,  each  being  controlled 
by  jarring  and  warring  bosses  and  machines.  The  cor- 
ruption was  not  what  it  had  been  in  the  days  of  Tweed, 
when  outside  individuals  controlled  the  legislators  like 
puppets.  Nor  was  there  any  such  centralization  of  the  boss 
system  as  occurred  later.  Many  of  the  members  were  under 
the   control   of   local   bosses   or   local   machines.     But   the 


■a 


PRACTICAL   POLITICS  77 

di'rectf   "'°'''    "^^^    "'"^"^   '^°"*'    ^^'""^^    ^''*'    members 
Of  course  I  never  had  anything  in  the  nature  of  legal  proof 
of  corruption,  and  the  figures  I  am  about  to  give  are  merely 
approximate      But  three  years'  experience  convinced  me 
in  the  first  place    that  there  were  a  great  many  thoroughly 
corrupt  men  in  the  Legislature,  perhaps  a  third  of  the  whole 
number;    and,  in  the  next  place,  that  the  honest  men  out- 
numbered the  corrupt  men,  and  that,  if  it  were  ever  possible  to 
get  an  issue  of  right  and  wrong  put  vividly  and  unmistakably 
before  them  in   a   way  that  would   arrest   their  attention 
and  that  would  arrest  the  attention  of  their  constituents   we 
coud  count  on  the  triumph  of  the  right.     The  trouble  was 
that  in  most  cases  the  issue  was  confused.     To  read  some 
kinds  of  literature  one  would  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  only  corruption  in  legisbnvc  circles  was  in  the  form  of 
bribery  by  corporations,  and  that  the  line  was  sharp  between 
the  honest  man  who  was  always  voting  against  corporations 
and  the  dishonest  man  who  was  always  bribed  to  vote  for 
them.     My   experience    was    the   direct   contrary   of   this 
I'or  every  one  bill  introduced  (not  passed)  corruptly  to  favor 
a  corporation,  there  were  at  least  ten  introduced  (not  passed 
and  in  this  case  not  intended  to  be  passed)  to  blackmail 
corporations.     The  majority  of  the  corrupt  members  would 
be  found  voting  for  the  blackmailing  bills  if  they  were  not 
paid,  and  would  also  be  found  voting  in  the  interests  of 
the  corporation  if  they  were  paid.     The  blackmailing,  or, 
as  they  were  always  called,  the  "strike"  bills,  could  themi 
selves  be  roughly  divided  into  two  categories  :  bills  which  it 
would  have  been  proper  to  pass,  and  those  that  it  would  not 
have  peen  proper  to  pass.     Some  of  the  bills  aimed  at  cor- 
porations were  utterly  wild  and  improper;    and  of  these  a 
proportion  might  be  introduced  by  honest  and  foolish  zealots, 
wherea.  most  of  them  were  introduced  by  men  who  had  not 
the  slightest  intention  of  passing  them,  but  who  wished  to 
be  paid  not  to  pass  them.     The  most  profitable  type  of 
l\iil  to  the  accomplished  blackmailer,   however,   was  a  bill 
^rhlr  (^^   "*    ''•'^,'   ^°'"PO'"ate   abuse    which    the  corporation, 
either  from  wickedness  or  folly,  was  unwilling  to  remedy. 


7H    THEODORE    ROOSEV  El/l"  —  AX    AUTOBIOCJRAPHY 

Of  the  measures  introduced  in  the  interest  of  corporations 
there  were  also  some  that  were  proper  and  some  that  were 
improper.  The  coriupt  legislators,  the  "black  horse 
cavalry,"  as  they  were  termed,  would  demand  payment 
to  vote  as  the  corporations  wished,  no  matter  whether  the 
bill  was  pror  er  or  improper.  Sometimes,  if  the  bill  was  a 
proper  one,  the  corporation  would  have  the  virtue  or  the 
strength  of  mind  to  refuse  to  pay  for  its  passage,  and 
sometimes  it   would   not. 

A  very  slight  consideration  of  the  above  state  of  affairs 
will  show  how  difficult  it  was  at  times  to  keep  the  issue  clear, 
for  honest  and  dishonest  men  were  continually  found  side 
by  side  voting  nowagainst  and  now  for  a  corporation  measure, 
the  one  set  from  proper  and  the  other  set  from  grossly 
improper  motives.  Of  course  part  of  the  fault  lay  in  the 
attitude  of  outsiders.  It  was  very  early  borne  in  upon  me 
that  almost  equal  harm  was  done  by  indiscriminate  defense 
of,  and  indiscriminate  attack  on,  corporations.  It  was  hard 
to  say  whether  the  man  who  prided  himself  upon  always 
antagonizing  the  corporations,  or  the  man  who,  on  the  plea 
that  he  was  a  good  conservative,  always  stood  up  for  them, 
was  the  more  mischievous  agent  of  corruption  and  demorali- 
zation. 

In  one  fight  in  the  House  over  a  bill  as  to  which  there  was 
a  bitter  contest  between  two  New  York  City  street  railway 
organizations,  I  saw  lobbyists  come  down  on  the  floor 
itself  and  draw  venal  men  out  into  the  lobbies  with  almost 
no  pretense  of  concealing  what  they  were  doing.  In  another 
case  in  which  the  elevated  railway  corporations  of  New  York 
City,  against  the  protest  of  the  Mayor  and  the  other  local 
authorities,  rushed  through  a  bill  remitting  over  half  their 
taxes,  some  of  the  members  who  voted  for  the  measure 
probably  thought  it  was  right ;  but  every  corrupt  man  in 
the  House  voted  with  them ;  and  the  man  must  indeed  have 
been  stupid  who  thought  that  these  votes  were  given  dis- 
interestedly. 

The  effective  fight  against  this  bill  for  tlu-  re\isi(>n  of  tlu' 
elevated  railway  taxes  -  perhaps  the  most  openly  crooked 
measure  which  during  my  time  was  pushed  at  Albany   —  was 


William  O'Xeill 
Isaac  Hunt. 


Mr.  Spinney  of  the  New  York  Times. 


Theodore  Roosevelt. 
W  alter  Howe. 


1*  n  alter  JJowe. 


8o    THEODORE    ROOSEXELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


waged  by  Mike  Costello  and  myself.  We  used  to  spend  a 
^'ood  deal  of  time  in  industrious  research  into  the  various 
bills  introduced,  so  as  to  find  out  what  their  authors  really 
had  in  mind;  this  research,  by  the  way,  being  highly  un- 
appreciated and  much  resented  by  the  authors.  In  the 
course  of  his  researches  Alike  had  been  puzzled  by  an 
unimportant  bill,  seemingly  related  to  a  Constitutional 
.amendment,  introduced  by  a  local  saloon-keeper,  whose 
interests,  as  far  as  we  knew,  were  wholly  remote  from  the 
Constitution,  or  from  any  form  of  abstract  legal  betterment. 
However,  the  measure  seemed  harmless ;  we  did  not  inter- 
fere ;  and  it  passed  the  House.  Mike,  however,  followed 
its  career  in  the  Senate,  and  at  the  last  moment,  almost  by 
accident,  discovered  that  it  had  been  "amended"  by  the 
simple  process  of  striking  out  everything  after  the  enacting 
clause  and  unobtrusively  substituting  the  proposal  to  remit 
the  elevated  railway  taxes  !  The  authors  of  the  change 
wished  to  avoid  unseemly  publicity ;  their  hope  was  to 
slip  the  measure  through  the  Legislature  and  have  it  in- 
stantly signed  by  the  Governor,  before  any  public  attention 
was  excited.  In  the  Senate  their  plan  worked  to  perfection. 
There  was  in  the  Senate  no  fighting  leadership  of  the  forces 
of  decency ;  and  for  such  leadership  of  the  non-fighting  type 
the  representatives  of  corruption  cared  absolutely  nothing. 
By  bold  and  adroit  management  the  substitution  in  the 
Senate  was  effected  without  opposition  or  comment.  The 
bill  (in  reality,  of  course,  an  absolutely  new  and  undebated 
bill)  then  came  back  to  the  House  nominally  as  a  merely 
amended  measure,  which,  under  the  rules,  was  not  open  to 
debate  unless  the  amendment  was  first  by  vote  rejected. 
This  was  the  great  bill  of  the  session  for  the  lobby ;  and  the 
lobby  was  keenly  alive  to  the  need  of  quick,  wise  action. 
No  public  attention  whatever  had  so  far  been  excited. 
Every  measure  was  taken  to  secure  immediate  and  silent 
action.  A  powerful  leader,  whom  the  beneficiaries  of  the  bill 
trusted,  a  fearless  and  unscrupulous  man,  of  much  force 
and  great  knowledge  of  parliamentary  law,  was  put  in  the 
chair.  Costello  and  1  were  watched  ;  and  when  for  a  moment 
we  were  out  of  the  House,  the  bill  was  brought  over  from  the 


PRACTICAL  POLITICS 


8t 


Senate,  and  the  clerk  began  to  read  it,  all  the  black  horse 
cavalry,    in    expectant    mood,    being    in    their    seats.     But 
Mike  Costell..,  who  was  in  the  clerk's  room,  happened  to 
catch  a  few  words  ..f  what  was  being  read.     In  he  rushed, 
despatched  a  messenger  for  me,  and  began  a  single-handed 
filibuster.      The    Speaker    pro    tem    called    him    to    order. 
Mike  continued  to  speak  and  protest ;  the  Speaker  hammered 
him  down ;    \I,ke  continued  his  protests ;    the  sergeant-at- 
arms  was  s<  ,t  to  arrest  and  remove  him  ;  and  then  I  bounced 
in,  and  conunued  the  protest,  and  refused  to  sit  down  or  be 
SI  cnt      Amid  wild  confusion  the  amendment  was  declared 
adopted,  and  the  b.ij  was  ordered  engrossed  and  sent  to  the 
Governor      But  we  had  carried  our  point.     The  next  morn- 
ing the  whole  press  rang  with  what  had  happened;    every 
detail  of  the  bill,  and  every  detail  of  the  way  it  h^d  been 
slipped   through   the   Legislature,   were   made   public.     All 
the  slow  and  cautious  men  in  the  House,  who  had  been  afraid 
ot  taking  sides  now  came  forward  in  support  of  us.    Another 
debate  was  held  on  the  proposal  to  rescind  the  vote  ;  the  dty 

sign  the  bill.  Two  or  three  years  later,  after  much  litigation, 
the  taxes  were  paid  ;  ,n  the  newspapers  it  was  stated  that  the 
amount  was  over  ^i  500,000.     It  was  Mike  Costello  to  whom 

and  thaJ'th^f  "'  '^''''  '^''-'^''  ^""^  "^^  «^^'^^  ^^e  publi^ 
and  that  the  forces  of  corruption  received  a  stinging  rebuff 

Hc^d.d  not  expect  recognition  or  reward  for  his  services- 
and  he  got  none.  The  public,  if  it  knew  of  what  he  had  done' 
promptly  forgot  it.  The  machine  did  not  forget  it  and 
turned  him  down  at  the  next  election.  ^         ' 

One  of  the  stand-by  "strikes"  was  a  bill  for  reducing  the 
elevated  railway  fare,  which  at  that  time  was  ten  cenfs  to 
five  cents.  In  one  Legislature  the  men  responsible  fo  the 
introduction  of  the  bill  suflFered  such  an  extraordinary  change 
of  heart  that  when  the  bill  came  up  -  being  Shed  bv 

lltZ'follt  "'°  "^'1^  r'  honLt-thf  iSucer^ 
actually  voted  against  it !     A  number  of  us  who  had  been 

Wh  bt  "'  '^""'  '^'  P""^'P'^  °f  ^he  bill  voted  for  i^ 
simply  because  we  were  convinced  that  money  was  beine 
used  to -stop  It,  and  we  hated  to  seem  to  side  with  the  co"! 


H2     IHKODORK    R()OSK\Ki;r  — AN    MTOBKHIRAPHV 


niptionists.  Tlicii  lluTi-  caim-  a  wave  of  pDpiilar  fciliii^; 
ill  its  favor,  tlu-  bill  was  rciiitrodiicid  al  llu-  in-xt  sission, 
the  raiiv/ays  very  wistl)  ili-iidt-d  tliat  llii-y  v.oiikl  simply 
fight  it  on  its  merits,  and  the  entire  black  horse  cavalry 
contingent,  together  with  ail  the  former  friends  of  the  meas- 
ure, voted  against  it.  Some  of  us,  who  in  our  anger  at  the 
methods  formerly  resorted  to  for  killing  the  bill  had  voted  f(jr 
it  the  previous  year,  with  much  heart-searching  a'/ain 
voted  for  it,  as  I  now  think  unwisely;  and  the  bill  was 
vetoed  by  the  then  (lovernor,  Grover  Cleveland.  I  believe 
the  veto  was  proper,  and  those  who  felt  as  I  did  supported 
the  veto;  for  although  it  was  entirely  right  that  the  fare 
should  be  reduced  to  five  cents,  which  was  soon  afterwards 
done,  the  method  was  unwise,  and  would  have  set  a  mischie- 
vous precedent. 

An  instance  of  an  opposite  kind  occurred  in  conncctit)n 
with  a  great  railway  corporation  which  wished  to  increase 
its  terminal  facilities  in  one  of  our  great  cities  The  repre- 
sentatives of  the  railway  brought  the  bill  to  me  and  asked  me 
to  look  into  it,  saying  that  they  were  well  aware  that  it 
was  the  kind  of  bill  that  lent  itself  to  blackmail,  and  that 
they  wished  to  get  it  through  on  its  merits,  and  invited  the 
most  careful  examination.  I  looked  carefully  into  it,  found 
that  the  municipal  authorities  and  the  property-owners 
whose  property  was  to  be  taken  favored  it,  and  also  found 
that  it  was  an  absolute  necessity  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  city  no  less  than  from  the  standpoint  of  the  railway. 
So  I  said  I  would  take  charge  of  it  if  I  had  guarantees  that 
no  money  should  be  used  and  nothing  improper  done  in 
order  to  push  it.  This  was  agreed  to.  I  was  then  acting 
as  chairman  of  the  committee  before  which  the  bill  went. 

A  very  brief  experience  proved  what  I  had  already  been 
practically  sure  of,  that  there  was  a  secret  combination  of 
the  majority  of  the  committee  on  a  crooked  basis.  On  one 
pretext  or  another  the  crooked  members  of  the  committee 
held  the  bill  up,  refusing  to  report  it  either  favorably  or  un- 
favorably. There  were  one  or  two  members  of  the  com- 
mittee who  were  pretty  rough  characters,  and  when  T  de- 
cided to  force  matters  I  was  not  sure  that  we  wou'd  not  have 


PRACTICAL   POLITICS 


83 


trouble      There  was  a  broken  chair  in  the  room,  and  I  got 
a  leg  of  It  loose  and  put  it  down  beside  me  where  it  was  not 
visible   but  where      might  get  at  it  in  a  hurry  if  necessary 
I  moved  that  the  bill  be  reported  favorably.     This  was  voted 
down  without  debate  by  the  "  combine,"  some  of  whom  kept 
a  W(x,den  sto  idity  of  lock,  while  other,   leered  at  m^  wUh 
sneering  insolence.      I  then  moved  that  it  be  reported  un- 
favorably,  and  again  the  motion  was  voted  down  by  the  same 
majority  and  in  the  same  fashion.     I  then  put  Ihe  b  IHn 
my  pocket  and  announced  that  I  would  report  it  anyhow 
ihis  almost  precipitated  a  riot,  especially  when  I  explained' 

J ive    h.    r*"  •'      ''"  ^^^L^'-^'^^""-^''  that  in  that  case  I  should 
gne  the  Legislature  the  reasons  why  I  susp.-cted  that  the 
men  holding  up  all  report  of  the  bill  were  hold  ng  it  up  for 
purposes  of  blackniail.     The  riot  did  not  come  off ;   panly 
hink,  because  the  opportune  production  of  the  chair-leg 

olone'ort'w^nf"''   "^'^   ^^^''^'^^  "^'"^  ^"  ^^'^^^  ^-""""^t^ 
irom  one  or  two  of  my  opponents 

Accordingly  I  got  the  bill  reported  to  the  Legislature  and 
put  on  the  calendar.  But  here  it  came  to  a  dead  halt  I 
think  this^was  chiefly  because  most  of  the  newspaper  which 
noticed  the  matter  at  all  treated  it  in  such  a  cynkaUp  ri 
as  to  encourage  the  men  who  wished  to  blackmail.  These 
papers  reported  the  introduction  of  the  bill,  and  said     h" 

the  oie''     an^l'^i^'''''"'"'  T  ^'^'""""g  f^r  their  share  of 
tnt  pit     ,  and  they  accepted  as  certain  the  fact  that  there 
was  going  to  be  a  division  of  "pie."     This  succeeded   in 
nghtening  honest   men,  and  al.o  in   relieving  the   rogue 
the  former  were  afraid  they  would  be  suspectc^d  of  recdvinj 

IZ/ur'J  'T'i  ^"'  '^''  >'^''  ^"'l  t'^^"  '^"^'•-  were  gi^^en  ? 
shield  behind  which  to  stand  until  they  were  paid  I  was 
Wholly  unable  to  move  the  bill  forward  in  theTcgislature 
and  finally  a  representative  of  the  railway  told  me  that  he 
thought  he  would  like  to  take  the  bill  out  of  my  hands 
a  I^did  no,  seem  able  to  get  i,  through,  and  ;h7perhats 
uciessful  '"r"  '"""■  ^-^P^'''-.-'^'"  i-^J-  ->uld  I  mon- 
course  tLi  I-  ^rV-'  ''V'"'  ''^'-^'  this  meant,  but  of 
course  I  had  no  kind  of  proof,  and  moreover  I  was  not  in  a 


84    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


If  < 


position  to  say  that  I  could  promise  success.  Accordingly, 
the  bill  was  given  into  the  charge  of  a  veteran,  whom  I 
believe  to  have  been  a  personally  honest  man,  but  who 
was  not  inquisitive  about  the  motives  influencing  his  col- 
leagues. This  gentleman,  who  went  by  a  nickname  which 
I  shall  incorrectly  call  "the  bald  eagle  of  VVeehawken,"  was 
efficient  and  knew  his  job.  After  a  couple  of  weeks  a  motion 
to  put  the  bill  through  was  made  by  "the  bald  eagle"; 
the  "black  horse  cavalry,"  whose  feelings  had  undergone  a 
complete  change  in  the  intervening  time,  voted  unani- 
mously for  it,  in  company  with  all  the  decent  menibers ; 
and  that  was  the  end.  Now  here  was  a  bit  of  work  in  the 
interest  of  a  corporation  and  in  the  interest  of  a  community, 
which  the  corporation  at  first  tried  honestly  to  have  put 
through  on  its  merits.  Th<'  blame  for  the  failure  lay  pri- 
marily in  the  supine  indifference  of  the  community  to 
legislative  wrong-doing,  so  long  as  only  the  corporations 
were  blackmailed. 

Except  as  above  mentioned,  I  was  not  brought  in  contact 
with  big  business,  save  in  the  effort  to  impeach  a  certain 
judge.  This  judge  had  been  used  as  an  instrument  in  their 
business  by  certain  of  the  men  connected  with  the  elevated 
railways  and  other  great  corporations  at  that  time.  We  got 
hold  of  his  correspondence  with  one  of  these  men,  and  it 
showed  a  shocking  willingness  to  use  the  judicial  office  in 
any  way  that  one  of  the  kings  of  finance  of  that  day  desired. 
He  had  actually  held  court  in  one  of  that  financier's  rooms. 
One  expression  in  one  of  the  judge's  letters  to  this  financier 
I  shall  always  remember:  "I  am  willing  to  go  to  the  very 
verge  of  judicial  discretion  to  serve  your  vast  interests."  The 
curious  tl'ing  was  that  I  was  by  no  means  certain  that  the 
judge  hin  self  was  corrupt.  He  may  have  been;  but  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that,  aside  from  his  being  a  man  of 
coarse  moral  fiber,  the  trouble  lay  chiefly  in  the  fact  that  he 
had  a  genuine  —  if  I  had  not  so  often  seen  it,  I  would  say  a 
wholly  inexplicable  reverence  for  the  possessor  of  a  great 
fortune  as  such.  Hr  sincerely  believed  that  business  was 
the  end  of  existence,  and  that  judge  and  legislator  alike 
should  do  whatever  was  necessary  to  favor  it ;  and  the  bigger 


PRACF'ICAr,   POLITICS 


8S 


t  u-  husuu-ss  the  mnn-  hv  dvsm-d  to  faxor  it.     Big  business 
u   the  kind  tluit  IS  alli.tl  with  pditics  thc.rouglily  appreciated 
the  usefulness  ..f  such  a  judKe,  at.d  every  effort  was  strained 
to  protect  h.n.      \\  e  fought  hard       by  "we"  I  mean  some 
thirty  or  forty  legislators,  both  Republicans  and  Democrats 
—  but  the     black  horse  cavalry,"  and  the  timid  good  men 
and  the  dull  conservative  men,  were  all  against  us;    and 
the  vote  in  the  Legislature  was  heavily  against  impeachment 
I  he  minority  of  the  committee  that  investigated  him,  with 
t^liapin  at   its    head,  recommended    impeaclnient ;    the  ar- 
gunient  for  impeachment  before  the  c(Mnmittee  was  made 
by  Francis  Lynde  Stetson. 

It  was  my  first  experience  of  the  kind.  Various  men  whom 
I  had  known  well  sc  nally  and  had  been  taught  to  look  up  to 
prominent  business  men  and  lawyers,  acted  in  a  way  which 
not  only  astounded  me,  but  which  I  was  quite  unable  to 
recoricile  with  the  theories  I  had  formed  as  to  their  high 
standing  —  I  was  little  more  than  a  year  out  of  college  at 
the  time,  denerally,  as  has  been  always  the  case  since,  they 
were  careful  to  avoid  any  direct  conversation  with  me  on 
a  concrete  case  of  what  we  now  call  "privilege"  in  business 
and  in  politics,  that  is,  of  the  alliance  between  business  and 
politics  which  represents  improper  favors  rendered  to  some 
men  in  return  for  improper  conduct  on  the  part  of  others 
being  Ignored  or  permitted. 

One  member  of  a  prominent  law  firm,  an  old  family  friend 
did,  however    take  me  out  to  lunch  one  day,  evidentiv  for 
the  purpose  of  seeing  just  what  it  was  that  I  wished  and  in- 
^nded  to  do      I  believe  he  had  a  genuine  personal  liking  fo, 
me.     He  explained  that  I  had  done  well  in  the  Legislature 
that  It  was  a  good  thing  to  have  made  the  "reform  plav  ' 
that  I  had  shown  that  I  possessed  abilitv  such  as  would  make 
me  useful  in  the  right  kind  of  law  office  or  business  concern  ; 
but  that  I  must  not  overplay  my  hand ;   that  I  had  gone  far 
enough,  and  that  now  was  the  time  to  leave  politics  and 
identny  myself  with  the  right  kind  of  people,  the  people 
who  would  always  ,n  the  long  run  control  others  and  obtain 
the  real  rewards  which  were  worth  having.     I  asked  him  if 
that  meant  that  I  was  to  yield  to  the  ring  in  politics.     He 


sr,     IHIiODORI-:    ROOSEVELT  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


li  I 


cmswcnd  sonu'ulial  impatimlly  that  I  was  entirely  inis- 
takiii  (as  ill  fact  I  was)  about  there  being  merely  a  political 
ring,  of  the  kind  of  which  the  papers  were  fond  of  talking; 
that  the  "  ring,"  if  it  could  be  called  such  —  that  is,  the 
inner  circle  —  included  certain  big  business  men,  and  the 
pi)liticians,  lavv\er.s,  and  judges  who  were  in  alliance  with 
and  to  a  certain  extent  dependent  upon  them,  and  that  the 
successful  man  had  to  win  his  success  by  the  backing  of  the 
same  forces,  whether  in  law,  business,  or  politics. 

This  conxersation  not  only  interested  me,  but  made  such 
an  impression  that  I  always  remembered  it,  for  it  was  the 
first  glimpse  I  had  of  that  combination  between  business 
and  politics  which  I  was  in  after  years  so  often  to  oppose. 
In  the  America  of  .hat  day,  and  especially  among  the  people 
whom  I  knew,  the  successful  business  man  was  regarded 
by  everybody  as  preeminently  thr  good  citizen.  The  ortho- 
dox books  on  pcjlilical  economy,  not  only  in  America  but 
in  Kngland,  were  written  for  his  especial  glorification.  The 
tangible  rewards  came  to  him,  the  admiration  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  respectable  type  was  apt  to  be  his,  and  the 
severe  newspaper  moralists  who  were  never  tired  of  denounc- 
ing politicians  and  political  methods  were  wont  to  hold  up 
"business  methods"  as  the  ideal  which  we  were  to  strive  to 
introduce  into  political  life.  Herbert  Croly,  in  "The 
Promise  of  American  Life,"  has  set  forth  the  reasons  why 
our  individualistic  demociacy  —  which  taught  that  eacli 
man  was  to  rely  exclusively  on  himself,  was  in  no  way  to  be 
interfered  with  b>  others,  and  was  to  devote  himself  to  his 
own  personal  welfare  —  necessarily  produced  the  type  of 
business  man  who  sincerely  believed,  as  did  the  rest  of  the 
community,  that  the  individual  who  amassed  a  big  fortune 
was  the  man  who  was  the  best  and  most  typical  American. 

In  the  Legislature  the  problems  with  which  I  dealt  were 
mainly  problems  of  honesty  and  decency  and  of  legislative 
and  administrative  efficiency.  They  represented  the  effort, 
the  wise,  the  vitally  necessary  effort,  to  get  efficient  and 
honest  government.  But  as  yet  I  understood  little  of  the 
effort  which  was  already  beginning,  for  the  most  part  under 
very  bad  leadership,  to  secure  a  more  genuine  social  and 


PRACnCAL   POLITICS 


87 


industna  justice.  Nor  was  I  especially  to  blame  for  this. 
I  he  good  citizens  I  then  knew  best,  even  when  themselves 
men  ot  limited  means  —  men  like  my  colleague  Billy  O'Neill 
and  my  backwoods  friends  Sewall  and  Dow —  were  no 
more  awake  than  I  was  to  the  changing  needs  the  changing 
times  were  bringing.  Their  outlook  was  as  narrow  as  mv 
own.  and,  within  its  limits,  as  fundamentally  sound. 

1  wish  to  dwell  on  the  soundness  of  our  outlook  on  life 
even  though  as  yet  it  was  not  broad  enough.  V'e  were  no 
respecters  of  persons  Where  our  vision  was  developed 
to  a  degree  that  enabled  us  to  sec  crookedness,  we  opposed  it 
whether  in  great  or  small.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  found 
that  It  needed  much  more  courage  to  stand  up  openly  against 
labor  men  when  they  were  wrong  than  againft  capifalists 
when  they  were  wrong.  The  sins  against  labor  are  usually 
committed,  and  the  improper  services  to  capitalists  are 
usually  rendered,  behind  closed  doors.  \'ery  often  the 
man  with  the  moral  courage  to  speak  in  the  open  against 

wnrT  r"?K'  "  T"^  V^''-  ""'>'  '"^'^  ^"^i°"«  t°  do  effective 
work  for  labor  when  labor  is  right. 

nJ,^''  ""'y  kinds  of  courage  and  honesty  which  are  perma- 
nently useful  to  good  institutions  anywhere  are  those  shown 
by  men  who  decide  all  cases  with  impartial  justice  on  grounds 
of  conduct  and  not  on  grounds  of  class.     We  found  that  in 

he  long  run  the  men  who  in  public  blatantly  insisted  that 
labor  was  never  wrong  were  the  very  men  who  in  private 
could  not  be  trusted  to  stand  for  labor  when  it  was  right 
We  grew  heartily  to  distrust  the  reformer  who  never  de- 
nounced wickedness  unless  it  was  embodied  in  a  rich  man 
Human  nature  does  not    change;    and  that    type  of  -re- 
former     IS   as    noxious    now   as    he   ever   was.     The   loud- 
mouthed upholder  of  popular  rights  who  attacks  wickedness 
only  when  it  is  allied  with  wealth,  and  who  never  publicly 
assails  any  misdeed,  no  matter  how  flagrant,  if  committed 
nominally  m  the  interest  of  labor,  has  either  a  v;arped  mind  or 
a    a.nted  s„u  ,  aiu  should  be  trusted  by  no  honest  man.      ft 

1  our'm  n  /  ;  "",'|^"^V''  '"^'  oonlc.nptuou^  dislike  aroused 
D  event  tt-  '*'  ^^^'"^'P?^"V^  ^'^  ^'''^  ^'lass  which  then 
prevented  those  ol  us  whose  instincts  at  bottom  were  sound 


88    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


from  going  as  far  as  we  ought  to  have  gone  along  the  lines  of 
governmental  control  of  corporations  and  governmental 
interference  on  behalf  of  labor. 

I  did,  however,  have  one  exceedingly  useful  experience, 
A  bill  was  introduced  by  the  Cigar-Makers'  Union  to  prohibit 
the  manufacture  of  cigars  in  tenement-houses.  I  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  a  committee  of  three  to  investigate  conditions 
in  the  tenement-houses  and  see  if  legislation  should  be  had. 
Of  my  two  colleagues  on  the  committee,  one  took  no  interest 
in  the  measure  and  privately  said  he  did  not  think  it  was 
right,  but  that  he  had  to  vote  for  it  because  the  labor  unions 
were  strong  in  his  district  and  he  was  pledged  to  support 
the  bill.  The  other,  a  sporting  Tammany  man  who  after- 
wards abandoned  politics  for  the  race-track,  was  a  very  good 
fellow.  He  told  me  frankly  that  he  had  to  be  against  the 
bill  because  certain  interests  which  were  all-powerful  and 
with  which  he  had  dealings  required  him  to  be  against  it, 
but  that  I  was  a  free  agent,  and  that  if  I  would  look  into  the 
matter  he  believed  1  would  favor  the  legislation.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  had  supposed  I  would  be  against  the  legis- 
lation, and  I  rather  think  that  I  was  put  on  the  committee 
with  that  idea,  for  the  respectable  people  I  knew  were 
against  it;  it  was  contrary  to  the  principles  of  political 
economy  of  the  laissezfaire  kind  ;  and  the  business  men  who 
spoke  to  me  about  it  shook  their  heads  and  said  that  it  was 
designed  to  prevent  a  man  doing  as  he  wished  and  as  he  had 
a  right  to  do  with  what  was  his  own. 

However,  my  first  visits  to  the  tenement-house  districts 
in  question  made  me  feel  that,  whatever  the  theories  might 
be,  as  a  matter  of  practical  common  sense  I  could  not 
conscientiously  vote  for  the  continuance  of  the  conditions 
which  I  saw.  These  conditions  rendered  it  impossible  for 
the  families  of  the  tenement-house  workers  to  live  so  that  the 
children  might  grow  up  fitted  for  the  exacting  duties  of 
American  citizenship.  I  visited  the  tenement-houses  once 
with  my  colleagues  of  the  committee,  once  with  some 
of  the  labor  union  representatives,  and  once  or  twice  by 
myself.  In  a  few  of  the  tenement-houses  there  were  suites 
of  rooms  ample  in  number  where  the  work  on  the  tobacco 


PRACTICAL  POLITICS 


89 


was  done  in  rooms  not  occupied  for  cooking  or  sleeping  or 
iving.     In  the  overwhelming  majority  of  cases,  however 
there  were  one,  two  or  three  room  apartments,  and  the  work 
of  manufacturing  the  tobacco  by  men,  women,  and  children 
went  on  day  and  night  in  the  eating,  living,  and  sleeping 
rooms  -  sometimes  in  one  room.     I  havealways  remembered 
one  room  in  which  two  families  were  living.     On  my  inquiry 
as  to  who  the  third  adult  male  was  I  was  fold  that^he  wa    a 
boarder  with  one  of  the  families.     There  were  several  chil- 
dren, three  men,  and  two  women  in  this  room.     The  tobacco 
was  stowed  about  everywhere,  alongside  the  foul  bedding 
and  in  a  corner  where  there  were  scraps  of  food.     The  men 
women,  and  children  in  this  room  worked  by  day  and  f^; 
on  into  the  evening,  and  they  slept  and  ate  there.     They 
ZTu  ^°'?|-7'^"f'  ""^ble  to  speak  English,  except  that  one 
of  the  children  knew  enough  to  act  as  intemreter 

Instead  of  opposing  the  bill   I  ardently  championed  it 
It  was  a  poorly  drawn  measure,  and  the  Governor,  Grover 
C  eveland,  was  at  first  doubtful  about  signing  it.     The  Cigar- 
Makers  Lnion  then  asked  me  to  appear  before  the  Governor 
for  th^b^n"'  '^-     ^^^■'^-dingly  did  so,  acting  as  spokesman 
for  the  battered,  undersized  foreigners  who  represented  the 
Union    and   the   workers.     The  Governor  signed    the   bill 
A  terwards   this   tenement-house  cigar   legislation   was   de- 
clared invalid  by  the  Court  of  Appeals  in  the  Jacobs  decision 
acobs  was  one  of  the  rare  tenement-house  manufactuers 
of  cigars  who  occupied  quite  a  suite  of  rooms,  so  that   n  h 
case    the    living    conditions    were    altogether    except  ona 
VVhat  the  reason  was  which  influenced  those  brhig^  th e 
Idn  not  l"'  '^"  ^f 'optional  instead  of  the  average  worker 
I  do  not  know;    of  course  such  action  was  precisely  the 
action  which  those  most  interested  in  having  the  law  broken 
down  were  anxious  to  see  taken.     The  Court  of  Appeals 
declared   the   law   unconstitutional,   and   in   theh-  deS 
he  judges  reprobated  the  law  as  an  assault  upon  the  'haT 
oved     influences  of  "home."     it  was  this  case  which  first 
aked  me  ,0  a  dim  and  partial  undcrslanding  of  the  fac 
that  the  courts  were  not  necessarily  the  best  judges  of  what 
should  be  done  to  better  social  and  industrial  ^cond  tbns' 


90    THEODORE    ROOSEX  EL  T  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The  judges  who  rendered  this  decision  were  well-meaning 
men.  They  knew  nothing  whatever  of  tenement-house 
conditions ;  they  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  needs,  or  of 
the  life  and  labor,  of  three-fourths  of  their  fellow-citizens  in 
great  cities.  They  knew  legalism,  but  not  life.  Their 
choice  of  the  words  "hallowed"  and  "home,"  as  applicable 
to  the  revolting  conditions  attending  the  manufacture  of 
cigars  in  tenement-houses,  showed  that  they  had  no  idea  what 
it  was  that  they  were  deciding.  Imagine  the  "hallowed" 
associations  of  a  "home"  consisting  of  one  room  where  two 
families,  one  of  them  with  a  boarder,  live,  eat,  and  work  ! 
This  decision  completely  blocked  tenement-house  reform 
legislation  in  New  York  for  a  score  of  years,  and  hampers 
it  to  this  day.  It  was  one  of  the  most  serious  setbacks  which 
the  cause  of  industrial  and  social  progress  and  reform  ever 
received. 

I  had  been  brought  up  to  hold  the  courts  in  especial  rev- 
erence. The  people  with  whom  I  was  most  intimate  were 
apt  to  praise  the  courts  for  just  such  decisions  as  this,  and 
to  speak  of  them  as  bulwarks  against  disorder  and  barriers 
against  demagogic  legislation.  These  were  the  sarrie  people 
with  whom  the  judges  who  rendered  these  decisions  were 
apt  to  foregather  at  social  clubs,  or  dinners,  or  in  private 
life.  Very  naturally  they  all  tended  to  look  at  things  from 
ilie  same  standpoint.  Of  course  it  took  more  than  one 
experience  such  as  this  Tenement  Cigar  Case  to  shake  me 
out  of  the  attitude  in  which  I  was  brought  up.  But  various 
decisions,  not  <Mily  of  the  New  ^'ork  court  but  of^  certain 
other  State  courts  and  even  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  during  the  quarter  of  a  century  following  the  passage 
of  this  tenement-'-  -ise  legislation,  did  at  last  thoroughly 
wake  me  to  the  fact.      I  grew  to  realize  that  all  that 

Abraham  Lincoln  i.ad  said  about  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
could  be  said  with  equal  truth  and  justice  about  the  numer- 
ous decisions  which  in  our  own  day  were  erected  as  bars 
across  the  path  of  scuial  n-fonn,  and  which  brought  to  naught 
soniuchof  tln-elTorl  l<i  ^(.■c(lK■  ju.-iin-  and  fairdealing  l(u  work- 
ingmen  and  workingwonien,  and  for  plain  citizens  general  1\'. 

Some  of  the   wickedness   and   inefficiency   in   public   life 


t 

i 


By  oourtesy  of  Harper  and  Ilrothera. 


■Rkform  without  Bloodshkd." 


92    THEODORK    ROOSKVF.LT  -  AN    AU'IOBKKIRAPHV 

was  then  displayed  in  simpler  fashion  than  would  probably 
now  be  the  case  Once  or  twice  I  was  a  member  of  com- 
mittees which  looked  into  gross  and  widely  ramifying 
Kovernmental  abuses.  On  the  whole,  the  most  important 
part  I  played  was  in  the  third  Legislature  in  which  1  served, 
when  I  acted  as  chairman  of  a  committee  w;hich  investi- 
gated various  phases  of  New  York  City  official  life. 

The  most  important   of  the  reform  measures  our  com- 
mittee  recommended  was   the   bill  taking  away  from   the 
Aldermen   their  power  of  confirmation  over  the  Mayor  s 
appointments.     We  found  that  it  was  possible  to  get  citizens 
interested  in  the  character  and  capacity  of  the  head  ot  the 
city    so  that  they  would  exercise  some  intelligent  interest 
in  his  conduct  and  qualifications.     But  we  found  that  as  a 
matter  of  fact  it  was  impossible  to  get  them  interested  in 
the  Aldermen   and   other   subordinate  officers.     In   actua 
practice  the  Aldermen  were  merely  the  creatures  of  the  local 
ward  bosses  or  of  the  big  municipal  bosses,  and  where  they 
controlled  the  appointments  the  citizens  at  large  had  no 
chance  whatever  to  make  their  will  felt.     Accordingly  we 
fought  for  the  principle,  which  I  believe  to  be  of  universal 
application,  that  what  is  needed  in  our  popular  governnient 
is  to  give  plenty  of  power  to  a  few  officials,  and  to  make  these 
few  officials  genuinely  and  readily  responsible  to  the  people 
for  the  exercise  of  that  power.     Taking  away  the  confirming 
power  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen  did  not  give  the  citizens  of 
New  York  good  government.     We  knew  that  if  they  chose 
to  elect  the  wrong  kind  of  Mayor  they  would  have  bad 
government,  no  matter  what  the  form  of  the  lav.^  was.     But 
we  did  secure  to  them  the  chance  to  get  good  government  if 
they  desired,  and  .his  was  impossible  as  long  as  the  old  sys- 
tem remained.     The  change  was  fought  in  the  way  in  which 
all  similar  changes  always  are  fought.     The  corrupt  and 
interested  politicians  were  against  it,  and  the  battle-cries 
they  used,  which   rallied  to  them  most  of  the  unthinking 
conservatives,  were  that  we  were  changing  the  old  consti- 
tutional  system,  that  we  were  defacing  the  monuments  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  founders  of  the  government,  that  we  were 
destroying  that  distinction  between  legislative  and  executive 


"i 


« 


-4 


PRACTICAL  POLITICS  93 

power  which  was  the  bulwark  of  our  liberties,  and  that  we 
were  violent  and  unscrupulous  radicals  with  no  reverence  for 
the  past. 

Of  course  the  investigations,  disclosures,  and  proceedings  of 
the  investigating  committee  of  which  I  was  chairman  brought 
me  into  bitter  personal  conflict  with  very  powerful  financiers 
very    powerful    politicians,    and    with    certain    newspapers' 
which  these  financiers  and  politicians  controlled.     A  num^ber 
ot  able  and  unscrupulous  men  were  fighting,  some  for  their 
hnanciallivcs,  and  others  to  keep  out  of  unpleasantly  close 
neighborhood    to   State's   prison.     This    meant   that   there 
were  blows  to  be  taken  as  well  as  given.      In  such  political 
struggles    those  who  went  in  for  the  kind  of  thing  that  I 
did  speedily  excited  animosities  among  strong  and  cunning 
men  who  would  stop  at  little  to  gratify  their  animosity 
Any  man  engaged  in  this  particular  type  of  militant  and  prac- 
tical reform  movement  was  soon  made  to  feel  that  he  had 
better  not  undertake  to  push  matters  home  unless  his  own 
character  was   unassailable.     On  one  of  the    investigating 
committees  on  which  I  served  there  was  a  countryman,  a 
very  able   man,   who,   when   he   reached    New   York   Citv 
telt  as  certain  Americans  do  when  they  go  to  Paris  —  that 
the  moral  restraints  of  his  native  place  no  longer  applied. 
With  all  his  ability,  he  was  not  shrewd  enough  to  realize  that 
the  Police  Department  was  having  him  as  well  as  the  rest  of 
us  carefully  shadowed.     He  was  caught  red-handed  by  a 
plain-clothes  man  doing  what  he  had   no  business  to  do  • 
and  from  that  time  on  he  dared  not  act  save  as  those  who 
held  his  secret  permitted  him  to  act.     Thenceforth   those 
officials  who  stood  behind  the  Police  Department  had  one 
man  on  the  comtnittee  on  whom  they  could  count      I  never 
saw  terror  more  ghastly  on  a  strong  man's  face  than  on  the 
lace  ot  this  man  on  one  or  two  occasions  when  he  feared  that 
events  in  the  committee  might  take  such  a  course  as  to 
Jorce  him  into  a  position  where  his  colleagues  would  expose 
him  even  if  the  cty  officials  did  not.     However,  he  escaped 
for  we  were  never  able  to  gel  the  kind  of  proof  which  would 
warrant  our  asking  for  the  action  in  which  this  man  could 
not  have  joined. 


94    THl-ODORK    ROOSK\KLT-AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Traps  were  set  for  more  than  one  of  us,  and  if  vvc  had 
walked  into  these  traps  our  public  careers  would  have  ended, 
at  least  so  far  as  following  them  under  the  conditions  which 
alone  make  it  worth  while  to  be  in  public  life  at  all.     A  man 
can  of  course  hold  public  office,  and  many  a  man  does  hold 
public  office,  and    lead  a    public  career  of   a  sort,  even    it 
there  are  other  men  who  possess  secrets  about  him  which 
he  cannot  afford  to  have  divulged.     But  no  man  can  lead  a 
public  career  really  worth   leading,  no  man   can   act   with 
rugged  independence  in  serious  crises,  nor  strike  at  great 
abuses,  nor  aflFord  to  make  powerful  and  unscrupulous  foes, 
if  he  is  himself  vulnerable  in  his  private  character.     Nor 
will  clean  conduct  by  itself  enable  a  man  to  render  good 
service.     I  have  always  been  fond  of  josh  Billings's  remark 
that  "it  is  much  easier  to  be  a  harmless  dove  than  a  wise 
serpent."     There    are    plenty    of    decent    legislators,   and 
plenty  of  able  legislators;    but  the  blamelessness  and  the 
fighting   edge    are    not    always    combined.     Both    qualities 
are  necessary  for  the  man  who  is  to  wage  active  battle  against 
the  powers  that  prey.     He  must  be  clean  of  life,  so  that  he 
can  laugh  v.  hen  his  public  or  his  private  record  is  searched ; 
and  yet  being  clean  of  life  will  not  avail  him  if  he  is  either 
foolish   or   timid.     He    must   walk    warily    and    fearlessly, 
and  while  he  should  never  brawl  if  he  can  avoid  it,  he  must 
be  ready  to  hit  hard  if  the  need  arises.     Let  him  remember, 
by  the  way,  that  the  unforgivable  crime  is  soft  hitting.     Do 
not  hit  at  all  if  it  can  be  avoided  ;   but  itt'zrr  hit  softly. 

Like  most  Voung  men  in  politics,  I  went  through  various 
oscillations  of  feeling  before  I  "found  myself."  At  one 
period  I  became  so  impressed  with  the  virtue  of  complete 
independence  that  I  proceeded  to  act  on  each  case  purely 
as  I  personallv  viewed  it.  without  paying  any  heed  to  the 
principles  and  prejudices  of  others.  The  result  was  that  I 
speedily  and  dcservedlv  lost  all  power  of  accomplishing 
anything  at  all ;  and  I  thereby  learned  the  invaluable  lesson 
that  in  the  practical  activities  of  life  no  man  can  render  the 
highest  ^L-rvicc-  unless  he  can  act  in  conibinatioji  with  his 
fellows,  which  means  a  certain  amount  of  give-and-take 
between  him  and  them.     Again,  I  at  one  period   began  to 


i 


PRACriCAI,   POLITICS 


95 


lu-lifvc  llial   I  haJ  a  futuiv  Inlorc  rm-,  aiul  thai  it  Ih'Ikx.vtJ 
rnc  to  hv  very  far-sighted  and  scan  lach  action    carefully 
vvitli   a   view   to  its   possible    effect   on    that    future.      This 
speedily  made  me  useless  to  the  public  and  an   object  of 
aversion  to  myself;    and  I  then  made  up  my  mind  that  I 
wou  d  try  not  to  think  of  the  future  at  all,  but  would  proceed 
on  the  assumption  that  each  office  I  held  would  be  the  last 
I  ever  should  hold,  and  that  I  would  confine  mvself  to  trying 
to  do  my  work  as  well  as  possible  while  I  held  that  office 
I  found  that  for  me  personally  this  was  the  onlv  way  in  which 
I  could  either  enjoy  myself  or  render  good  service   to  the 
country,  and  I  never  afterwards  deviated  from  this  plan 

As   regards   political   advancement    the   bosses    could   of 
course  do  a  good  deal.     At  that  time  the  warring  Stalwart 
and  Half-Breed  factions  of  the  Republican  party  were  sup- 
porting respectively  President  Arthur  and  Senator  Miller 
-Neither  side  cared  for  me.     The  first  year  in  the  Legislature  I 
rose  to  a  position  of  leadership,  so  that  in  the  second  year 
when  the  Republicans  were    in  a    minority,  I  received    the 
minority  nomination  for   Speaker,  although  I  was    still  the 
youngest  man  in  the  House,  being  twenty-four  years  old. 
1  he  third  year  the  Republicans  carried  the  Legislature,  and 
the  bosses  at  once  took  a  hand  in  the  Speakership  contest. 
1  made  a  stout  fight  for  the  nomination,  but  the  bosses  of  the 
two  factions,  the  Stalwarts  and  the  Half-Breeds,  combined 
and      w-as  beaten.      I  was  much  chagrined  for  the  moment. 
But  the  fact  that   I   had  fought  hard  and  efficiently,  even 
though   defeated,    and   that    I    had    made   the   fight   single- 
handed,  with  no  machine  back  of  me,  assured  my  standing 
as  floor  leader.     My  defeat  in  the  end  materially  strength- 
ened my  position,  and  enabled  me  to  accomnlish  far  more 
than  I  could  have  accomplished  as  Speaker.'    As  so  often 
I  found  that  the  titular  position  was  of  no  consequence' 
what  counted  was  the  combination  of  the  opportunity  with 
he   ability   to  accomplish    results.     The   achievement   was 
the  all-important  thing ;   the  position,  whether  titularlv  high 
or  low,  was  of  consequence  only  in  so  far  as  it  widened  the 

n<;wri     I'f'"-^'''^-"-"'-.  '^^'"'"  '^''  ^^^^'io"  ^'os^^d  four  of 
us  who  looked  at  politics  fiom  the  same  standpoint  and  were 


96    THEODORE   ROOSEVEI/I- AN    AirOliKK.RAPIIV 

known  as  Independent  or  Anti-Machine  Republicans  were 
sent  by  the  State  Convention  as  dclenates-at-large  to  the  Kt- 
publican  National  Convention  of  1HS4,  where  I  advocated,  as 
vigorously  as  I  knew  how,  the  nomination  of  Senator  George 
F  Edmunds.  Mr.  Edmunds  was  defeated  and  .Mr.  Blaint 
nominated.  Mr.  Blaine  was  clearly  the  choice  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  party;  his  nomination  was  won  in  fair  and 
aboveboard  fashion,  because  the  rank  and  file  of  /he  party 
stood  back  of  him ;  and  I  supported  him  to  the  best  of  my 
ability  in  the  ensuing  campaign. 

The  Speakership  contest  enlightened  me  as  regards  more 
things  than  the  attitude  of  the  bosses.     I  had  already  had 
some   exasperating   experiences   with    the      silk    stocking 
reformer  type,  as  Abraham  Lincoln  called  it,  ^he  gentlernen 
who  were  very  nice,  very  refined,  who  shook  their  heads 
over    political    corruption    and    discussed     it    in    drawing- 
rooms  and  parlors,  but  who  were  wholly  unable  to  grapple 
with  real  men  in  real  life.     They  were  apt  vociferously  to 
demand  "reform"  as  if  it  were  some  concrete  substance,  like 
cake,  which  could  be  handed  out  at  will,  in  tangible  masses, 
if   only   the   demand   were   urgent   enough.     These   parlor 
reformers  made  up  for  inefficiency  in  action  by  zeal  in  criti- 
cising;  and  they  delighted  in  criticising  the  men  who  really 
were  doing  the  things  which  they  said  ought  to  be  done,  but 
which  they  lacked  the  sinewy  power  to  do.     They  otten 
upheld  ideals  which  were  not  merely  impossible  but  highly 
undesirable,  and  thereby  played  into  the  hands  of  the  very 
politicians    to   whom   they   professed   to   be   most   hostile. 
Moreover,  if  they  believed  that  their  own  interests,  indi- 
vidually or  as  a  class,  were  jeoparded,  they  were  apt  to  show 
no  higher  standards  than  did  the  men   they   usually  de- 

""On^of  their  shibboleths  was  that  the  office  should  seek 
the  man  and  not  the  man  the  office.  This  is  entirely  true  of 
certain  offices  at  certain  times.  It  is  entirely  untrue  when 
the  circumstances  are  different.  It  would  have  been  un- 
necessary and  undesirable  for  Washington  to  have  sought 
the  Presidency.  But  if  Abraham  Lincoln  had  not  sought 
the  Presidency  he  never  would  have  been  nominated.      1  lu 


i»RAc  ricAi.  poi.rncs 


97 


objection  in  such  a  case  as  this  lies  not  to  seeking  the  office 
but  to  seeking  it  in  any  but  an  honorable  and  proper  manner.' 
Ihe  ettect  of  the  shibboleth  in  question  is  usually  merely  to 
put  a  premium  on   hypocrisy,  and   therefore  to  favor  the 
creature  who  is  willing  to  rise  by  hypocrisy.     When  I  ran 
tor  Speaker,  the  whole  body  of  machine  politicians  was  against 
me,  and  my  only  chance  lay  in  arousing  the  people  in  the 
different  districts.      To  do  this  I  had  to  visit  the  districts, 
put  the  case  fairly  before  the  men  whom  I  saw,  and  make 
them  understand  that  I  was  really  making  a  fight  and  would 
stay  in  the  fight  to  the  end.     Vet  there  were  reformers  who 
shook  their  heads  and  deplored  my  "activity"  in  the  canvass. 
Uf  course  the  one  thing  which  corrupt  machine  politicians 
most  desire  IS  to  have  decent  men  frown  on  the  activity, 
tliat  IS,  on  the  efficiency,  of  the  honest  man  who  genuinely 
wishes  to  reform  politics.  ^ 

If  efficiency  is  left  solely  to  bad  men,  and  if  virtue  is 
confined  solely  to  inefficient  men,  the  result  cannot  be  haopy. 
When  I  entered  politics  there  were,  as  there  always  "had 
been  -and  as  there  always  will  be  —  any  numbc  bad 
men  in  politics  who  were  thoroughly  efficient,  and  an  um- 
ber of  good  men  who  would  like  to  have  done  lofty' things 
in  politics  but  who  were  thoroughly  inefficient.  If  I  wished 
to  accomplish  anything  for  the  country,  my  business  was 
to  combine  decency  and  efficiency;  to  be  a  thoroughlv 
practical  man  of  high  ideals  who  did  his  best  "o  reduce 
those  ideals  to  actual  practice.  This  was  my  ideal,  and 
to  the  best  of  my  ability  I  strove  to  live  up  to  it 

lo  a  young  man,  life  in  the  New  York  Legislature  was 
always  interesting  and  often  entertaining.  There  was  al! 
ways  a  struggle  of  some  kind  on  hand.     Sometimes  it  was 

on  a  mfJlt^  '^"r"°r  °^  "^^''  ""'^  ^'■°"^-     Sometimes  it  was 

on  a  question  of  real  constructive  statesmanship.     Moreover 

here   were   all    kinds   of   humorous    incidents,  the   humJ; 

he"f  .^•'l'  '^'  of  the  unconscious  kind.     In  o^e  session  o 

he  Legislature  the  New  York  City  Democratic  representa- 

tues  were  split  mto  two  camps,  and  there  were  two  rivals 

hannv  alt'^i:        "'"  °*  '^^  u  ^'^  ^  thoroughly  good-hearted, 
happy-go-lucky    person    who    was    afterwards    for    severa 


r,S      IIIKODOKK    R(M)SK\i:i.'I'       W    MTOBKHIRAPHV 

yiars  in  Coiigivss.     \h  had  hcrii  a  I  >cal  ma^islralf  ami  was 
called  judjrc.    (uiiiially  in-  and  I  were  friendly,  but  oecasir.ii- 
alh-    I  "did   s()meli\inj;  that   irritated  him.     lie  was  alwa\  s 
willing  to  vote   for  any  other  member's  bill   himself,   and 
he  regarded  it  as  narrow-minded  for  any  one  to  oppose  one 
of  his  bills,  espi-eially  if  the  opposition  was  upon  the  ground 
that  it  was  unconstitutional     -  for  his  views  of  the  Ctmslitu- 
tion  were  so  excessively  liberal  as  to  make  even  me  feel  as 
if  I  belonged  to  the  st'raitest  sect  of  strict  constructionists. 
On  one  occasion  he  had  a  bill  to  appropriate  money,  with 
obvious  improprietv,  for  the  relief  of  some  miscreant  whoin 
he    styled    "one   of    the    honest    yecmianry   of    the    State. 
When!  explained  to  him  that  it  was  clearly  unconstitutional, 
he   answered,     "Me   friend,   the  Constitution   don't    touch 
little  things  like  that,"  and  then  added,  with  an  ingratiating 
smile,  "Anvhow,  I'd  never  allow  the  Constitution  to  ome 
between  friends."     At  the  time  I  was  looking  over  the  proofs 
of   Mr.    Brvce's    "American   Commonwealth,"    and    I    told 
him  the  incident.      He  put  it  into    the  first  edition  of   the 
"Commonwealth";  whether  it  is  in  the  last  edition  or  not, 

I  cannot  sav. 

On  another  occasion  the  same  gentleman  came  to  an  issue 
with  me  in  a  debate,  and  wound  up  his  speech  by  explaining 
that  I  occupied  what  "lawyers  would  call  a  quasi  position 
oil  the  bill."     His  rival  was  a  man  of  totally  different  type, 
a  man  of  great  natural  dignitv,  also  born  in  Ireland.     He 
luid  served  with  gallantry  in  the  Civil  War.     After  the  close 
of  the  war  he  organized  an  expedition  to  conquer  Canada. 
The    expedition,    howi  \  er,    got    so    drunk    before    reaching 
Albany   that    it   was  there  incarcerated  in  jail,  whereupon 
its  leader  abandoned  it   and  went  into  \ew  York  politics 
instead.     He  was  a  man  of  influence,  and  later  occupied  in 
the  Police  Department  the  same  position  as  Commissioner 
which    I    mvself   at    one   time  occupied.     He   felt   that   his 
rival  had  gained  too  much  glory  at  my  expense,  and,  walking 
over  with  ceremonious  solemnity  to  where  the  said  rival  was 
sitting  close  beside  me,  he  said  to  him  :  "I  would  like  you  t(i 
know,  Mr.  Cameron  [Cameron,  of  course,  was  not  the  reai 
name],  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  knows  more  law  in  a  wake  than 


I'KACTICAI,    POLITICS  99 

you  do  in  a  month;  and,  more  than  thrit,  Michael  Cameron, 
what  do  you  mani-  by  quoting  l.atin  „n  the  H..or  of  this 
Mouse  when  you  don  t  know  the  alpha  and  omavKa  of  the 
languajjre  :  .  ^       •  .nv 

There  was  in  the  Legislature,  during  the  deadlock  above 
mentioned  a  man  whom  I  will  call  BroKan.  He  looked  like 
a  serious  elderly  frojr.  I  never  heard  him  speak  more  than 
once       It  was  before  the  lA>;islature  was  organized,  ..r  had 

for'tu      r'^L   '."'^•^',/r'   --•'   ^'^'>    "n-    only    business   was 

or   the  cle  k   to  call   the   roll.      ()„..  Jay    Bn.Kun   suddenly 

rose,  and  the  follouinjf  dialo^Mie  (xcurred  •  ^ 

Hrogan.      Mist  her  Clu-r-r-k  I 

Thi'  Clerk.     The  K«ntlemati  from  New  ^'ork 

r/'^^!',-  ,  '  ':';:r  '"  ^'  I^"'"'  -f  •"•^■'Hr  ...kI.  ,■  the  rules  ! 
I nf  iJrrk.       I  here  are  no  rules. 

Hroj^an.     Thin  I  object  to  tluiii  ! 
Thr  Clrrk.      There  ••     •  no  rules  l.,.,bject   to. 
J^.o,«,,.     ()hl    (,H,,,,    ,        ,.    l,,t    i,„„,,ai,,,K    recovering 
'n.re!  '       '"'"'■''''"    "'*•>•  '^^"   '"'H'uhd    until    there 

The  deadlock   was  tedious;  and  we  hailed   uilh   iov  s„ch 
cnhveninj;  incidents  as  the  above  ' 

During  my  three  years'  service  in  the  Legislature  I  worked 
on  a  very  simple  philosophy  of  government.      It   was  that 
persona    character  and  initiative  are  the  prime  requisites  in 
political   and   social    life.      It    was    not    onlv   a   good   bu     a 
absolutely   indispensable    theory    as     far    as     it  Wen,  ;     bu 

for'Xt   V'7    '".."'•''     •'     ^'''^^     "•"     ^^'fHnentlv    allow 

r    the    need    of    collective    actKMi.      f    shall    never    forget 

he    men    with    whom     I    worked    hand    in    hand    in    these 

legislative    struggles,    not     only    my    fellow-legislators,    but 

MKUe    of    the    newspaper    reporters,    such    as    .Spinnev    and 

Cunningham;    and  then  in  addition  tlu'  men  ii/the  various 

districts  who  helped  us.     We  had  made  up  our  mind      ha 

we  must   not   fight   fire  with   fire,   that   o„   the  contra  A-  the 

•mdvIVr"  TT"""   to  equal  our. foes  in   prac- i.al  ..fficiencv 

nu'rilitv!"       "  ■  "''•"""*■  '    ""■  ^'■"'"  """'  '"  '^'^^'-^ 

h  was  not  always  easy  to  keep  the  just  middle,  especially 


,oo    THEODORE    ROOSE\ELT-AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

when  it  happened  that  on  one  side  there  \yere  corrupt  and 
unscrupulous  demagogues,  and  on  the  other  side  cxjrrupt 
and  unscrupulous  reactionaries.     Our  effort  was  to  hold  the 
scales  even  between  both.     We  tried  to  stand  with  the  cause 
of  righteousness  even  though  its  advocates  were  anything 
but  righteous.     We  endeavored  to  cut  out  the  abuses  o 
property,  even  though  good  men  of  property  were  misled 
fnto  upholding  those  abuses.     We  refused  to  be  frightened 
nto  sanctioning  improper  assaults  upon  property,  although 
we  knew  that   the  champions  of  property  themselves  did 
things  that  were  wicked  and  corrupt.     We  were  as  yet  by 
no  means  as  thoroughly  awake  as  we  ought  to  have  been  to 
he  need  of  controlling  big  business  and  to  the  damage  done 
by  the  combination  of  politics  with  big  business.     In  this 
matter  I  was  not  behind  the  rest  of  "^^  f"'-""^^ '  ,.7.^^;^^,'.. . 
was  ahead  of  them,  for  no  serious  leader  in  P^^^ 
then  appreciated  the  prime  need  of  grappling  with  these 
questions.     One  partial  reason  -  not  an  excuse  or  a  justi- 
fication, but  a  partial  reason  -  for  my  slowness  in  grasping 
the    mportance  of  action  in  these  matters  was  the  corrupt 
and  unattractive  nature  of  so  many  of  the  m^-'" /^c,  cham- 
pioned popular    reforms,   their    insincerity    and    the  folly 
S  so  many  of  the  actions  which  they  advocated.     Even 
at  that  date  I  had  neither  sympathy  with  nor  admirat^n 
for  the  man  who  was  merely  a  money  king,  and  I  did  not 
regard  the  "money  touch,"  when  divorced  from  other  quah- 
S    as  entitling  a  man  to  either  respect  or  consideration 
As  recited  above,  we  did  on  more  than  one  occasion  figh 
battles,  in  which  we  neither  took  nor  gave  quarter  against 
the  most  prominent  and  powerful  financiers  and  financial 
nterTsts  of  the  dav.      But  most  of  the  fights  in  which  we  were 
engaged  were  for  pure  honesty  and  decency,  and  they  vvc-re 
more  apt  to  be  against  that  form  of  corruption  which  found 
"r^xp'ession  in  demagogy  than  against  that  form  of  cor- 
ruption   which   defended   or   advocated    privilege,     tunda- 
uientally,  our  tigj,.   was  part  of  ,he  eterna    ^yar  agamst  the 
Powers  that  Prey;    and  we  cared  not  a  wlut  in  uhat  ,ank 
of  life  these  powers  were  iound.  ,■      ^c  ■  .  • 

To  play  the  demagogue  for  purposes  ol  seli-mlerest  is  .. 


PRACTICAL  POLniCS 


lOI 


card.nal  s.n  against  the  people  in  a  Z -mocracy,  exactly  as 

the  people  under  other  forms  of  government.  A  man  who 
tays  long  ,n  <nn-  American  political  life,  if  he  has  in  h."  sod 
the  generous  desire  to  do  effective  service  for  great  causes 
inevitably  grows  to  regard  himself  merely  as  one  of  manv 
instruments,  all  of  which  it  may  be  necessary  to  use  one 
at  one  time,  one  at  another,  in' achieving  the  triumph  of 
those  causes;  and  whenever  the  usefulnesl  of  any  o^e  h^s 
been  exhausted,  it  is  to  be  thrown  aside.  If  such  a  man  is 
wise  he  will  gladly  do  the  thing  that  is  next,  vXn  thTtLie 
and  the  need  come  together,  without  asking  what    he  future 

ui;  td   d.en'^h'  ''^  1"'^-^°'^  ^J'y  '"^  P-^  well  and  ma" 
Jully,   and   then   be  content   to  draw  aside   when   the  Pod 

appears.     Nor  should  he  feel  vain  regrets  that  to  another  it 

s  given  to  render  greater  services  and%eap  a  greater  reward' 

Let  It  be  enough  for  him  that  he  too  has  seTved    and  thf; 

wL'cin^d^t;^.^^^ '-'-''  ^'^  -^  ^-  ^h:Vh"e?  ^t^ 


(  opyriiiht  by  I'mlurwood  &  fmlcrwooil 

I'RFsiDEN-T  Roosevelt  retursino  from  the    Bear  Hunt,   Newcastle,  Colorado. 

IN  lyOS. 


CHAPTER    I\- 


IX    COWBOY    LAND 


THOLGH  I  had  previously  made  a  trip  into  the  then 
Territory  of  Dakota,  beyond  the  Red  River,  it  was 
not  until   1883  that  I  went  to  the  Little  Missouri 
and    there    took    hold    of  two  cattle  ranches    the 
Chimney  Butte  and  the  Elkhorn.  'ancncs,  tnc 

the  w'.';  nfl\  '^"  w-"^  ^^"'  '•"  '^'''''  ^^>  ■^'  ^'^^  Far  West, 
the  West  of  Owen  Wister's  stones  and  Frederic  Remington's 
drawings,  the  West  of  the  Indian  and  the  buffalo--      .ter 
the  soldier  and  the  cow-puncher.     That  land  of  the  W'.    t  has 
gone  now,     gone,  gone  with  lost  Atlantis,"  gone  to  tin    -le  of 
ghosts  and  of  strange  dead   memories.      It  was  a   land  of 
vast  silent  spaces,  of  lonely  rivers,  and  of  plains  where  the 
wild  game  stared  at  the  passing  horseman.     It  was  a  land 
of  scattered  ranches,  of  herds  of  long-horned  cattle,  and  of 
reckless  riders  who  unmoved  looked  in  the  eyes  of  life  or  of 
death.     In  that  and  we  led  a  free  and  hardy  life,  with  horse 
and  with  rifle.     VVe  worked  under  the  scorching  midsummer 
sun,  when  the  wide  plains  shimmered  and  wavered  in  the 
heat;    and   we   knew  the   freezing  miserv  of   riding   night 
guard  round  the  cattle  in  the  late  fall   round-up.  ^In  ?he 
soft  springtime  the  .tars  were  glorious  in  our  eves  each  night 
before  we  fell  asleep;    and  in  the  winter  we  rode  through 
blinding  blizzards,   when   the  driven   snow-dust   burnt  our 
taccs.      Ihere    were    monotonous    days,    as    we   guided    the 
of'ilf "'  ^V^e  beef  herds,  hour  aft'er  hour,  at  the  slowest 
of  walks;   and  minutes  or  hours  teeming  with  excitement  as 
we   stopped    stampedes   or   swam    the    hrrds    acnrss    rivers 
ncacherous  w.ih  quicksands  or  bnmn.ed  with  running  ice. 
We  knew  toil  and  hardship  and  hunger  and  thirst  ;    and  we 

10  i 


,M 


104    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

saw  men  die  violent  deaths  as  they  worked  among  the  horses 
and  cattle,  or  fought  in  evil  feuds  with  one  another;  but 
we  felt  the  beat  of  hardy  life  in  our  veins,  and  ours  was  the 
glory  of  work  and  the  joy  of  living. 

It  was  right  and  necessary  that  this  life  should  pass,  for 
the  safety  of  our  country  lies  in  its  being  made  the  country 
of  the  small  home-maker.  The  great  unfenced  ranches, 
in  the  days  of  "free  grass,"  necessarily  represented  a  tem- 
porary stage  in  our  history.  The  large  migratory  flocks 
of  sheep,  each  guarded  by  the  hired  shepherds  of  absentee 
owners,  were  the  first  enemies  of  the  cattlemen :  and  owing 
to  the  way  they  ate  out  the  grass  and  destroyed  all  other 
ve-^etation,  these  roving  sheep  bands  represented  little  of 
permanent  good  to  the  country.  But  the  homesteaders, 
the  permanent  settlers,  the  men  who  took  up  each  his  own 
farm  on  which  he  lived  and  brought  up  his  family,  these 
represented  from  the  National  standpoint  the  most  desirable 
of  all  possible  users  of,  and  dwellers  on,  the  soil.  Their 
advent  meant  the  breaking  up  of  the  big  ranches ;  and  the 
change  was  a  National  gain,  although  to  some  of  us  an 
individual  loss. 

I  first  reached  the  Little  Missouri  on  a  Northern  Pacific 
train  about  three  in  the  morning  of  a  cool  September  day  in 
1883.  Aside  from  the  station,  the  only  building  was  a 
ramshackle  structure  called  the  Pyramid  Park  Hotel.  I 
dragged  my  duflle-bag  thither,  and  hanunered  at  the  door 
until  the  frowsy  proprietor  appeared,  muttering  oaths.  He 
ushered  me  upstairs,  where  I  was  given  one  of  the  fourteen 
beds  in  the  room  which  by  itself  constituted  the  entire  upper 
floor.  Next  day  I  walked  over  to  the  abandoned  army 
post,  and,  after  some  hours  among  the  gray  log  shacks,  a 
ranchman  who  had  driven  into  the  station  agreed  to  take  me 
out  to  his  ranch,  the  Chimney  Butte  ranch,  where  he  was 
living  with  his  brother  and  their  partner. 

The  ranch  was  a  log  structure  with  a  dirt  roof,  a  corral  for 
the  horses  near  b)\  and  ;i  chicken-house  jabbed  against  the 
rear  of  the  ranch  louse.  Inside  there  was  only  one  room, 
with  a  table,  three  or  four  chairs,  a  cooking-stove,  and  three 
bunks.     The   owners    were    Sylvanc    and    Joe    Ferris    and 


'J 


M 


4 


<  cpvTlght,  MofTett  Studio,  ('hleiuio 


A  Rkunion. 


l«entj -nine  years  ater  my  four  friends  of  that  nisht  i.,f  bobcats  and  old  sledcei  were 
^Oegates  to  the  l-.rst  ProRfessive  National  Conveni, on  at  Chicago  "-Mr   R^^^^^^ 
«:ated.    Irom  left  to  nghl,  J.  A.  Ferris,  S.  M.  Ferris.  W,  J.  Merrifield.  G  W  Move 


io6    THEODORE    ROOSE\ELT-AN    AL  TOBIOGRAPHY 


William  J.  Mcrrifield.  Later  all  three  of  them  held  my 
commissions  while  I  was  President.  Merrificld  was  Marshal 
of  Montana,  and  as  Presidential  elector  cast  the  vote  of  that 
State  for  me  in  1904;  Sylvane  Ferris  was  Land  Officer  in 
North  Dakota,  and  Joe  Ferris  Postmaste;  at  Medora. 
There  was  a  fourth  man,  George  Meyer,  who  also  worked 
for  me  later.  That  evening  we  all  played  old  sledge  round 
the  tabk-,  and  at  one  period  the  game  was  interrupted  by  a 
frightful  squawking  outside  which  told  us  that  a  bobcat 
had  made  a  raid  on  the  chicken-house. 

After  a  buffalo  hunt  with  my  original  friend,  Joe  Ferris, 
I  entered  into  partnership  with  Merrifield  and  Sylvane 
Ferris,  and  we  started  a  cow  ranch,  with  the  maltese  cross 
brand  —  always  known  as  "malice  cross,"  by  the  way,  as 
the  general  impression  along  the  Little  Missouri  was  that 
"maltese"  must  be  a  plural.  Twcnt\-nine  years  later 
my  four  friends  of  that  night  were  delegates  to  the  First 
Progressive  National  Convention  at  Chicago.  They  were 
among  my  most  constant  companions  for  the  few  years  next 
succeeding  the  evening  when  the  bobcat  interrupted  the 
game  of  old  sledge.  I  lived  and  worked  with  them  on  the 
ranch,  and  with  them  and  many  others  like  them  on  the 
round-up ;  and  I  brought  out  from  Maine,  in  order  to  start 
the  Elkhorn  ranch  lower  down  the  river,  my  two  back- 
woods friends  Sewall  and  Dow.  My  brands  for  the  lower 
ranch  were  the  elkhorn  and  triangle. 

I  df)  not  believe  there  ever  was  any  life  more  attractive 
to  a  vigorous  young  fellow  than  life  on  a  cattle  ranch  in 
those  days.  Tt  was  a  fine,  healthy  life,  too;  it  taught  a 
man  self-reliance,  hardihood,  and  the  value  of  instant 
decision  —  in  short,  the  virtues  that  ought  to  come  from  life 
in  the  open  country.  I  enjoyed  the  life  to  the  full.  After 
the  first  year  I  built  on  the  Elkhorn  ranch  a  long,  lo\y  ranch 
house  of  hewn  logs,  with  a  veranda,  and  with,  in  addition  to 
the  other  rooms,  a  bedroom  for  myself,  and  a  sitting-room 
with  a  big  fire-place.  I  got  out  a  rocking-chair  —  I  am  very 
fond  (if  rockitig-i-iiaiis  and  t'liougli  hooks  to  fill  two  or 
three  shelves,  and  a  rubber  bathtub  so  that  1  could  get  a 
bath.     And  then  I  do  not  see  how  any  one  could  have  lived 


IN   CCm-BOV   LAND  ,^7 

more  a)mff)rtablv      \\\-  \\ii\  k,,ff^\        1  •  • 

ii«u  piLiii),    10  cat.     Common  y   the   main^tnir  r^( 

sugar,  halt,  and  canned  tomatoes.     And  lat.-r   u^lw...  "1 

.0  men  carried  and  bnouKlu  „u.  .1  ci    wi  ;'  ^^   "7;° 

The  ranch  house  stood  on  the  brink  of  i  UnvU\,,i 
looking    the    hn,ad,    shallou-    bed  the    I     tie    \f '''''•■ 

through  which  at  most  seasons  there    an  onh    .  tr  ckr""'f 

Front  of  t^r  'Tu^'^'  "^  ^'^''y^  """^i'-*'    meadows.       In 

[IT.  ?4h  er  r  ^^°"r  "'-"'"^^  "^^  '-^  ^°"'  °f  cottonwoo 
irtts   wtth  gray-grccn   leaves   wh  ch   quivered   all   dav      .n^ 

there  was  a  breath  of  air.     From^hesc  tree    camel  he 

far-away,  melancholy  cooing  of  mourning  dovc^^;  and  little 


io8    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

owls  perched  in  them  and  called  tremulously  at  night.  In  the 
long  summer  afternoons  we  would  sometimes  sit  on  the  piazza, 
when  there  was  no  work  to  he  done,  for  an  hour  or  two  at  a 
time  watching  the  cattle  on  the  sand-bars,  and  the  sharply 
channeled  and  strangely  carved  amphitheater  of  cliffs 
across  the  bottom  opposite;  while  the  vultures  wheeled 
overhead,  their  black  shadows  gliding  across  the  glaring 
white  of  the  dry  river-bed.  Sometimes  from  the  ranch  we 
saw  deer,  and  once  when  we  needed  meat  I  shot  one  across 
the  river  as  I  stood  on  the  piazza.  In  the  winter,  in  the 
days  of  iron  cold,  when  everything  was  white  under  the 
snow,  the  river  lay  in  its  bed  fixed  and  immovable  as  a 
bar  of  bent  steel,  and  then  at  night  wolves  and  lynxes 
traveled  up  and  down  it  as  if  it  had  been  a  highway  passing 
in  front  of  the  ranch  house.  Often  in  the  late  fall  or  early 
winter,  after  a  hard  day's  hunting,  or  when  returning  from 
one  of  the  winter  line  camps,  we  did  not  reach  the  ranch 
until  hours  after  sunset ;  and  after  the  weary  tramping  in  the 
cold  it  was  keen  pleasure  to  catch  the  first  red  gleam  of  the 
fi-'-lit  windows  across  the  snowy  wastes.  ,     ,       ^        n 

The  Elkhorn  ranch  house  was  built  mainly  by  bewail 
and  Dow,  who,  like  most  men  from  the  Maine  woods,  were 
mighty  with  the  ax.  I  could  chop  fairly  well  for  an  amateur, 
but  I  could  not  do  one-third  the  work  they  could.  One 
day  when  we  were  cutting  down  the  cottonwood  trees,  to 
b(gin  our  building  operations,  I  heard  some  one  ask  Dow 
what  the  total  cut  had  been,  and  Dow,  not  realizing  that  1 
was  within  hearing,  answered:  "Well,  Bill  cut  down  fifty- 
three,  I  cut  forty-nine,  and  the  boss  he  beavered  down 
seventeen."  Those  who  have  seen  the  stump  of  a  tree 
which  has  been  gnawed  down  by  a  beaver  will  understand 
the  exact  force  of  the  comparison. 

In  those  days  on  a  cow  ranch  the  men  were  apt  to  be  away 
on  the  various  round-ups  at  least  half  the  time.  It  was 
interesting  and  exciting  work,  and  except  for  the  lack  of 
sleep  on  the  spring  and  summer  round-ups  it  was  not  ;x- 
hausting  work ;  compared  to  lumbering  or  mining  or  t>lL,k- 
smithing,  to  sit  in  the  saddle  is  an  easy  form  of  labor.  The 
ponies  were  of  course  grass-fed  and  unshod.     Each  man  had 


IN   COWBOY   LAND  ,og 

his  own  string  of  nine  or  ten.  One  pony  would  be  used  for 
the  morning  work,  one  for  the  afternoon,  and  neither  would 
agam  be  used  for  the  next  three  days.  A  separate  ponv 
was  kept  for  night  riding.  F«"«ne  pony 

The  spring  and  early  summer  round-ups  were  espcciallv 
for  the  branding  of  calves.  There  was  much  hard  work  and 
some  nsk  on  a  round-up   but  also  much  fun.     The  mcctin.- 

ottheTrZrv"  to'^b"'^'^'^^  beforehand,  and  all  the  ranchme'n 
oi  tnc    territory  to  be  covered  by  the  round-up  sent  their 
•     representatives.     There  were  no  fences  in  the  fve't  that 
knew,  and  their  place  was  taken  by  the  cowboy  and  thebrand 

wTh'Th  •  J^7'fl  ^'"^^r-'^  ^'''-     Each  calf  was  branded 
with  the  brand  of  the  cow  it  was  followin^     Sometimes  in 
winter  there  was  what  we  called  line  riding;   t  ha  Us  Tamp 
were  established  and  the  line  riders  travelfd  a  definite  bea 
across  the  desolate  wastes  of  snow,  to  and  fro  from  one 
camp  to  another,  to  prevent  the  cattle  from  drifting      Bu°as 
a  rule  nothing  was  done  to  keep  the  cattle  in  any  one  place 
In  the  spring  there  was  a  general  round-up  in  each  locaHtv 
Each  outfit  took  part  in  its  own  round-up,  and  all    he  outfit' 
of  a  given  region  combined  to  send  representatives  to  the 
two  or  three  round-ups  that  covered  the  neighborhoodlnear 

Little  Missouri  round-up  generally  worked  down  the  river 
from  a  distance  of  some  fifty  or  sixty  miles  above  my  rlnch 
tow  rds  the  K.ldeer  Mountains,  about  the  same  dltance 

to  Ze  YeUnt^T''  "^  T"''^  "^"/">'  -"^  representative: 
to  the  Yellowstone  round-up,  and  to  the  round-up  along 

cattle  had  drifted,  perhaps  toward  the  Indian  reservation 
southeast  .f  us,  we  would  send  a  wagon  and  rider  after  them 

half  Hr^%"'''''''"^"P°'"''  "^^''^  "^'^'^^  ^^  •"  the  vallev  of  a 
halt-dry  stream,  or  in  some  broad  bottom  of  the  river'itself 
or  perchance   by   a   couple  of  ponds    under  some   queerly 

about  w"'''  'm'  :r  1  '^"^"^^'•'^  ^"'-  ''^'-  '-^'Rion^oun^ 
about,   we   would   al     gather  on   the  appoi.ncd  day.     The 

bv  foJAT "''  '""TT-"'^^''  ^■^'^'"^  -^"^  ''-J'  ^•-^■''  drawn 
by  four  horses  and  driven  by  the  teamster  cook,  would  com. 

jolting  and  rattling  over  the  uneven  sward.     Accompanying 


no 


THKODORK  R(M)SKV  KLT  -  AN  AUTOBKXIRAPHV 


each  wagon  were    eight  or  ten    riders,  the    cow-punchers, 
while  their  horses,  a  band  of  a  hundred  or  so,  were  driven 
by  the  two  herders,  one  of  whom  was  known  as  the  day 
wrangler  and  one  as   the  night  wrangler.     The  men   were 
lean,    sinewy    fellows,    accustomed    to     riding    half-broken 
horses  at  any  speed  over  any  country  by  day  or  by  night. 
They  wore  flannel  shirts,  with  loose  handkerchiefs  knotted 
round  their  necks,  broad  hats,  high-heeled  boots  with  jingling 
spurs,  and  sometimes  leather  shaps,   although  often    they 
merely  had  their  trousers  tucked  into  the  tops  of  their  high 
boots.     There  was  a  good  deal    :)f   rough   horse-play,   and, 
as  witli  any  other  gathering  of  men  or  boys  of  high  animal 
spirits,    the    horse-play     sometimes    became     very     rough 
indeed  ;    and  as  the  men   usually  carried  revolvers,  and  as 
there  were  occasionally  one  or  two  noted  gun-fighters  among 
them,  there  was  now  and  then  a  shooting  affray.     A  man 
who  was  a  coward  or  who  shirked  his  work  had  a  bad  time, 
of  course  ;   a  man  could  not  afford  to  let  himself  be  bullied  or 
treated  as  a  butt;   and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  he  was  "look- 
ing for  a  fight,"  he  was  certain  to  find  it.     But  my  own 
experience  was  that  if  a  man  did  not  talk  until  his  associates 
knew  him  well  and  liked  him,    and    if  he  did    his  work,  he 
never  had  any  difficulty  in  getting  on.     In  my  own  round- 
up district  I  speedily  grew  to  be  friends  with  most  of  the 
men.     When  I  went  among  strangers  I  always   had  to  spend 
twenty-four    hours  in    living  down    the   fact   that    I    wore 
spectacles,  remaining  as  long  as  I  could  judiciously  deaf  to 
any  side  remarks  about  "four  eyes,"  unless  it  became  evident 
that  my  being  quiet  was  misconstrued  and  that  it  was  better 
to  bring  matters  to  a  head  at  once. 

If,  for  instance,  I  was  sent  off  to  lepresent  the  Little 
Missouri  brands  on  some  neighboring  round-up,  such  as  the 
Yellowstone,  I  usually  showed  that  kind  of  diplomacy 
which  consists  in  not  uttering  one  word  that  can  be  avoided. 
I  would  probably  have  a  couple  of  days'  solitary  ride, 
mounted  on  one  lK)rse  and  driving  right  or  len  others  before 
me,  one  of  them  iarr\ing  my  bedding.  Loose  horses 
drive  best  at  a  trot,  or  canter,  and  if  a  man  is  traveling  alone 
in  this  fashion  it  is  a  good  thing  to  have  them  reach  the 


s^^^ 


The  K1.KH0RN  IUnch  Housk  anu  ihk  Dekds  uk  I'iklua 


112 


'IIIKODORK    ROOSKVF.IT  —  A\    Al'TOBKX.RAPIlY 


camp  ground  sufficiently  late  to  make  them  desire  to  feed 
and  sleep  where  they  are  until  morning.  In  consequence 
I  never  spent  more  than  two  days  <>?i  the  journey  from  what- 
ever the  point  was  ^t  whicli  I  left  the  Little  Missouri,  sleep- 
ing the  one  night  for  as  limited  a  number  of  hours  as  possible. 

As  soon  as  I  reached  the  meeting-place  I  would  find  out 
the  wagon  to  which  I  was  assigned.  Riding  to  it,  I  turned 
my  horses  into  the  saddle-band  and  reported  to  the  wagon 
boss,  or,  in  his  absence,  to  the  cook  —  alw?vs  a  privileged 
character,  who  was  allowed  and  expectr  lO  order  men 
around.  He  would  usually  grumble  savagely  and  profanely 
about  my  having  been  put  with  his  wagon,  but  this  was 
merely  conventional  on  his  part ;  and  if  I  sat  down  and  said 
nothing  he  would  probably  soon  ask  me  if  I  wanted  any- 
thing to  eat,  to  which  the  correct  answer  was  that  !  was  not 
hungry  and  would  wait  until  meal-time.  The  bedding  rolls 
of  the  riders  would  be  strewn  round  the  grass,  and  I  would 
put  mine  down  a  little  outside  the  ring,  where  I  would  not 
be  in  any  one's  way,  with  my  six  or  eight  ..randing-irons 
Desidc  it.  The  men  would  ride  in,  laughing  and  talking 
with  one  another,  and  perhaps  nodding  to  me.  One  of 
their  number,  usually  the  wagon  foreman,  might  put  some 
question  to  me  as  to  what  brands  I  represented,  but  no 
other  v.'ord  would  be  addressed  to  me,  no»-  would  T  be  ex- 
pected to  volunteer  any  conversation.  Supper  wouiu  con- 
sist of  bacon,  Dutch  oven  bread,  and  possibly  beef ;  once  I 
won  the  good  graces  of  my  companions  at  the  outset  by 
appearing  with  two  antelope  which  I  had  shot.  After  supper 
I  would  roll  up  in  my  bedding  as  soon  as  possible,  and  the 
others  would  follow  suit  at  their  pleasure. 

At  three  in  the  morning  or  thereabouts,  at  a  yell  from  the 
cook,  all  hands  would  turn  hurriedly  out.  Dressing  was  a 
simple  affair.  Then  each  man  rolled  and  corded  his  bedding 
—  if  he  did  not,  the  cook  would  leave  it  behind  and  he  would 
go  without  any  for  the  rest  of  the  trip  —  and  came  to  the 
fire,  where  he  picked  out  a  tin  cup,  tin  plate,  and  knife  and 
fork,  helped  himself  to  coffee  and  to  whatever  food  there  was, 
and  ate  it  standing  or  squatting  as  best  suited  him.  Dawn 
was  probably  breaking  by  this  time,  and  the  trampling  of 


IN  COWBOY   I.A\D  „^ 

unshod  hoofs  showed  that  »h«.  r,:^u.  , 

in  the  p„„y  herd.     T-v',   ,/    ,.  ^"  wou'S Vh ""  '"'"""" 
from  the  wsKin  at  ri.hr  a„Jl„'    ,  ,    '"'"  ™"  ''''P''* 

saddled  and  bridled  Lfmr-'S-"^'"*^-  ^''^'  '"^"  ^^en 
by  some  resolute  buckLon'^  he  n  "f  T  "■'"'".>■  ^"""^^^'d 
hirses,  especially  in  the^arlv  dl^  f  "^  T  '""  "'■^'^-  "^  '^'^ 
bucking  was  always  aVurc.  .f  ^  ""'''  '•"""'^-"P-  The 
whose  Lrses  did  not  buck  and  ^"'7'"'  '"  '"  ^'^^  "^^'^ 
gather  round  Kivineironiral  J^  •  '"  ^?"""^te  ones  would 
fhe  rider  not  To  "L  to    eithe  '• ''  ^/jf-P^^'^^y  adjuring 

foreman  who  bossed  a  mV^n  ..,/  usually  the  ranch 

gathering  ail  the  e^  |e"  tuU  fin7  Tr'''  ""?  ^'"'?'.-. 
arnMr^rl  f^  ^  ^'"^'y  ^"^  »"  twos  and  threes  thcv 

iZ'^ut  h's  ^rtirjrTa"^  ti^r-'  "■•=  'r-'^ 

they  had  collected  Tw^  ?u  "r'  ^'"'^^  ''"'''"  ^"'^  "'^'^s, 
take  care  of  t^he  he;d  1T  ?^  '^T  °^  ^^"  "^^"  ^^"^  '^^^  to 
hasty  dinner    and  fhl        ^"  '''^'''  "¥"^^''^  h"'-^^^'  ^te  a 

We  workJS  ''"^°"^3"y  mavencks  or  unbrandcd  yearlines 
and  r^^i  r,"  ZT  S-'lj-out  to  the  edge  of  ^the  t^l; 


th  a  sudden  dash  took  it  off  at 
Iways  desperately  anxious  to  break  back 


at  a  run. 


and 


was 


rcjOin  trr 


,,4    TllKODORK    ROOSKVKLT   -AX    Al'TOBIOCRAPHY 

herd  'I'lu-rc  was  much  bivakiicck  galloping  aiul  twisting 
and  luniing  before-  its  dcsiir  was  tliwartid  and  it  was  driven 
t,,  join  the-  rest  ,,^  the  cut  tliat  is,  the  other  animals  wlucli 
had  been  cut  out,  and  wliicli  were  being  heki  by  one  or  two 
other  men.  Cattle  hate  being  alone,  and  it  was  no  easy 
matter  to  hold  the  first  one  or  two  that  were  cut  out ;    but 


TllK   COW-PINCHKKS 


Tho  men  were  lean,  sin.wy  f.lU.ws,  accustomed  to  ri.lint:  l,alf;!'rokcn  horses,  at  any 
sinTil.  over  any  country,  by  day  or  by  ni^hl. 


If 


soon  thev  got  a  little  herd  of  their  own  and  then  they  were 
contented.  When  the  cutting  out  had  all  been  donc%  the 
calves  were  branded,  and  all  misadventures  of  the  ca  t 
wrestlers,"  the  men  who  seized,  threw,  and  held  each  call 
when  roped  bv  the  mounted  roper,  were  hailed  with  yelling 
laughter.  Then  the  animals  which  for  one  reason  or  an- 
other it  was  desired  lo  drive  along  with  tlie  round-up  vyero 
put  into  one  herd  and  left  in  charge  of  a  coviple  of  night 


IX   COWBOY   LAND 


IIS 


guards,  and  the  rest  of  us  would  loaf  back  to  the  vvaKon  for 
supper  and  bed.  * 

By  this  time  I  would  have  been  accepted  as  one  of  the 

rest  of  the  outfit,  and  -l.  -.r.n.-.-ncss  would  have  passed  off 

he  attitude  of  my  fel   ,..v  cou-piMa n  ts  being  one  of  friendiv' 

llTZT%'"T  '"'"   'I'   ^"^'   ;P''^-' '-^'^'«-     XiKht  guards  for 
the  cattle  herd  were   .:h  a  assign.  .  by  the  captain  of  the 
wagon,  or  perhaps  by  tne  .ou,.J-  uy  foreman,  according  to  the 
needs  of  the  case,  the  guards  standing  for  two  hours  at  a 
time  from  eight  m  the  evening  till  four  in  the  morning      The 
first  and  last  watches  were  preferable,  because  sleep  was  not 
broken  as  ,n  both  of  the  other  Uvn.      If  things  went  well,  the 
cattle   would    soon    bed   down    and    nothing   further   would 
occur  until  morning,  when  there  was  a  repetition  of  the  work 
the  wagon  moving  each  da)-  eight  or  ten  miles  to  some  ap- 
pointed camping-place.  * 
Kach  man  would  picket  his  night  horse  near  the  wagon 
usually  choosing  the  quietest  animal  in  his  string  lor  ihat 
purpose,  because  to  saddle  and  mount  a  "mean"  horsr  -.t 
night  IS  not  pleasant.     When  utterlv  tired,  it  was  hard  to 
have  to  get  up  for  one's  trick  at  night  herd.     Nevertheless 
on  ordinary  nights  the  two  hours  round  the  cattle  in  the  still' 
darkness    were    pleasant.     The    loneliness,    under   the    vast 
empty  sky,  aiid  the  silence,  in  which  the  breathing  of  the 
cattle  sounded  loud,  and  the  alert    readiness  to  meet  anv 
emergency  which  might  suddenly  arise  out  of  the  formless 
night,  all  combined  to  give  one  a  sense  of  subdued  interest 
I  hen    one   soon  got    to   know  the  cattle  of  marked   indi- 
viduaity,  the  ones  that  led  the  others  into  mischief-    and 
one  also  grew  to  recognize  the  traits  thev  all  possessed  in 
commcn,    and    the   impulses   which,    for   instance,    made   a 
whole  herd  get  up  towards   midnight,  each   beast   turning 
round  and  then  lying  down  again.     But  bv  the  end  of  the 
watch  each  rider  had  studied  the  cattle  until  it  grew  monot- 
onous, and  heartil)-  welcomed  his  relief  guard.      A  newcomer 
o  course,  had  any  amount  to  learn,  and  s<.metimes  tlie  sim- 
[Mest  things  were  those  which  brought  him  to  grief 

One   mgiit  early   in    my  career   I    failed   satisfactorilv   to 
Kientit)-  the  direction  in  which  1  was  to  go  In  »)tder  to  wach 


() 


,i6    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  night  herd.  It  was  a  pitch-dark  night.  I  managed  to 
get  started  wrong,  and  I  never  found  either  the  herd  or  the 
Wagon  again  until  sunrise,  when  I  was  greeted  with  wither- 
ing scorn  by  the  injured  cow-puncher,  who  had  been  obhged 
to  stand  double  guard  because  I  failed  to  relieve  hini. 

There  were  other  misadventures  that  I  met  with  where 
the  excuse  was  greater.  The  punchers  on  night  guard 
usually  rod-  round  the  cattle  in  reverse  directions;  ca  ling 
and  singing  to  them  if  the  beasts  seenied  restless,  to  keep 
them  quiet.  On  rare  occasions  something  happened  that 
made  the  cattle  stampede,  and  then  the  duty  of  the  nders 
was  to  keep  with  them  as  long  as  possible  and  try  gradually 

to  eet  control  of  them.  ,    ,,    r  i_ 

One  night  there  was  a  heavy  storm,  and  all  of  us  who  were 
at  the  wagons  were  obliged  to  turn  out  hastily  to  help  the 
night  herders.     After  a  while  there  was  a  terrific  peal  o 
thunder,  the  lightning  struck  right  by  the  herd  and  away  all 
the  beasts  went,  heads  and  horns  and  tails  in  the  air.     tor  a 
minute  or  two  I   could   make  out  nothing  except  the  dark 
forms  of  the  beasts  running  on  every  side  of  me  and  I  should 
have  been  very  sorry  if  my  horse  had  stumbled,  for  thos 
behind  would  have  trodden  me  down.     Then  the  herd  split 
Dart  going  to  one  side,  while  the  other  part  seemingly  kept 
straight  ahead,  and  I  galloped  as  hard  as  ever  beside  them 
I  was  trying  to  reach  the  point  -  -  the  leading  animals  —  in 
order  to  turn  them,  when  suddenly  there  was  a  tremendous 
splashing  in  front.     I  could  dimly  make  out  that  the  cattle 
immediately  ahead  and  to  one  side  of  me  were  disappearing, 
and  the  next  moment  the  horse  and  I  went  oflF  a  cut  bank  into 
the  Little  Missouri.     I  bent  away  back  in  the  saddle,  and 
thouRh  the  horse  almost  went  down  he  just  recovered  himseli, 
and,  plunging  and  struggling  through  water  and  quicksand, 
we  made  f he  other  side.     Here  I  discovered  that  there  wa 
another  cowboy  with    the  same   part  of  the   herd   that  1 
was  with ;    but  almost  immediately  we  separated.     1  gal- 
loped hard  through  a  bottom  covered  with  big  cottonwood 
trees,  and  stopped  the  part  of  the  herd  that  I  was  with   bu. 
very  soon  vney  broke  on  me  again,  and  repealed  this  tw  ct 
Finally  toward  morning  the  few  I  had  left  came  to  a  halt. 


IN   COWBOY   LAND 


117 


1 


It  had  been  raining  hard  for  some  time.  I  got  off  my 
horse  and  leaned  against  a  tree,  hut  before  long  the  infernal 
cattle  started  on  again,  and  I  had  to  ride  after  them.  Dawn 
came  soon  after  this,  and  I  was  able  to  make  out  where  I 
was  and  head  the  cattle  back,  collecting  other  little  bunches 
as  I  went.  After  a  while  I  came  on  a  cowboy  on  foot  carry- 
ing his  saddle  on  his  head.  He  was  my  companion  of  the 
previous  night.  His  horse  had  gone  full  speed  into  a  tree 
and  killed  itself,  the  man,  however,  not  being  hurt.  I 
could  not  help  him,  as  I  had  all  I  could  do  to  handle  the 
cattle.  When  I  got  them  to  the  wagon,  most  of  the  other 
men  had  already  come  in  and  the  riders  were  just  starting  on 
the  long  circle.  One  of  the  men  changed  my  horse  for  me 
while  I  ate  a  hasty  breakfast,  and  then  we  were  off  for  the 
day's  work. 

As  only  about  half  of  the  night  herd  had  been  brought 
back,  the  circle  riding  was  particularly  heavy,  and  it  was  ten 
hours  before  we  were  back  at  the  wagon.  We  then  changed 
horses  again  and  worked  the  whole  herd  until  after  sunset, 
finishing  just  as  it  grew  too  dark  to  do  anything  more.  P^ 
this  time  I  had  been  nearly  forty  hours  in  the  saddle,  chan^ 
ing  horses  five  times,  and  my  clothes  had  thoroughly  dried 
on  me,  and  I  fell  asleep  as  soon  as  I  touched  the  bedding. 
Fortunately  some  men  who  had  gotten  in  late  in  the  morn- 
ing had  had  their  sleep  during  the  daytime,  so  that  itie 
rest  of  us  escaped  night  guard  and  were  not  called  until 
four  next  morning.  Nobody  ever  gets  enough  sleep  on  a 
round-up. 

The  above  was  the  longest  number  of  consecutive  hours 
I  ever  had  to  be  in  the  saddle.  But,  as  I  have  said,  I  changed 
horses  five  times,  and  it  is  a  great  lightening  of  labor  for  a 
rider  to  have  a  fresh  horse.  Once  when  with  Sylvane 
Ferris  I  spent  about  sixteen  hours  on  one  horse,  riding 
seventy  or  eighty  miles.  The  round-up  had  reached  a 
place  called  the  ox-bow  of  the  Little  Missouri,  and  we  had 
to  ride  there,  do  some  work  around  the  cattle,  and  ride 
back. 

Another  time  I  was  twenty-four  hours  on  horseback  in 
company  with  Merrifield  without  changing  horses.     On  this 


ii8     THKODORE    ROOSFAF.IT-  AN    AITOBIOCMPHV 


occasion  \vc  did  not  travel  fast.  W'c  liad  hcci,  coiiiiiij; 
l)ack  with  tlic  wagon  from  a  Imnting  trip  in  the  Big  lltjrii 
Mountains.  The  team  was  lagged  out,  and  we  were  tired 
of  walking  at  a  snail's  pace  beside  it.  When  we  reached 
country  that  the  driver  thoroughly  knew,  we  thought  it 
safe  to  leave  him,  and  we  loped  in  one  night  across  a  distance 
which  it  look  the  wagon  the  three  following  days  to  cover. 
It  was  a  beautiful  moonliglit  night,  and  the  ride  was  delight- 
ful. All  day  long  we  had  plodded  at  a  walk,  wcar\-  and  hot. 
At  supper  time  we  had  rested  two  or  three  hours,  and  the 
tough  little  riding  horses  seemed  as  fresh  as  ever.  It  was  in 
September.  As  we  rode  out  of  the  circle  of  the  firelight,  the 
air  was  cool  in  our  faces.  Under  the  bright  moonlight,  and 
then  under  the  starlight,  we  loped  and  cantered  mile  after 
mile  over  the  high  prairie.  We  passed  bands  of  antelope  and 
herds  of  long-horn  Texas  cattle,  and  at  last,  just  as  the  first 
red  beams  of  the  sun  flamed  over  the  bluffs  in  front  of  us, 
we  rode  down  into  the  valley  of  the  Little  Missouri,  where 
our  ranch  house  stood. 

I  never  became  a  good  roper,  nor  more  than  an  average 
rider,  according  to  ranch  standards.  Of  course  a  man  on  a 
ranch  has  to  ride  a  good  many  bad  horses,  and  is  bound  to 
encounter  a  certain  number  of  accidents,  and  of  these  I  had 
my  share,  at  one  time  cracking  a  rib,  and  on  another  occa- 
sion the  point  of  my  shoulder.  We  were  hundreds  of  miles 
from  a  doctor,  and  each  time,  as  I  was  on  the  round-up,  I 
had  to  get  through  my  work  for  the  next  few  weeks  as  best  I 
could,  until  the  injury  healed  of  itself.  When  I  had  the 
opportunity  I  broke  my  own  horses,  doing  it  gently  and 
gradually  and  spending  much  time  over  it,  and  choosing  the 
horses  that  seemed  gentle  to  begin  with.  With  these  horses 
I  never  had  any  difficulty.  But  frequently  there  was  neither 
time  nor  opportunity  to  handle  our  mounts  so  elaborately. 
VV^e  might  get  a  band  of  horses,  each  having  been  bridled  and 
saddled  two  or  three  times,  but  none  of  them  having  been 
broken  beyond  the  extent  implied  in  this  bridling  and 
saddling.  Then  each  of  us  in  succession  would  choose  a 
horse  (for  his  string),  T  as  owner  of  the  ranch  being  given  the 
first  choice  on  each  round,  so  to  speak.     The  first  time  I  was 


IX   COWBOY'   LAND 


iiy 


ever  on  a  round-up  Sylvane  Ferris,  Mcrrifield,  Meyer,  and 
I  each  chose  his  string  in  this  fashion.     Three  or  four  of  the 
animals  I  got  were  not  easy  to  ride.     The  effort  both  to  ride 
them  and  to  look  as  if  I  enjoyed  doing  so,  on  some  cool 
morning  when   my  grinning  cowboy  friends   had  gathered 
round  "to  see  whether  the  high-headed  bay  could  buck  the 
boss  oflF,"  doubtless  was  of  benefit  to  me,  but  lacked  much  of 
being  enjoyable.     The  time  I  smashed  my  rib  I  was  bucked- 
off  on  a  stone.     The  time  I  hurt  the  point  of  mv  shoulder 
I  was  riding  a  big,  sulky  horse  named  Ben  Butler,  vvhich  went 
over  backwards  with  me.     When  we  got  up  it  still  refused  to 
go  anywhere;    so,  while  I  sat  it,  vSylvane  Ferris  and  (ieorge 
Meyer  got  their  ropes  on  its  neck  and  dragged  it  a  few  hun- 
dred yards,  choking  but  stubborn,  all  four  feet  firmlv  planted 
and  plowing  the  ground.     When  they  released  the  ropes  it 
lay  down  and  wouldn't  get  up.     The  round-up  had  started  ; 
so   Sylvane   gave    me    his    horse,    Baldy,  which   sometimes 
bucked  but  never  went  over  backwards,  and  he  got  on  the 
now  rearisen  Ben  Butler.      To  my  discomfiture  Ben  started 
quietly  beside  us,  while  Sylvane  remarked,  "Whv,  there's 
nothing  the  matter  with  this  horse;    he's  a  plumb  gentle 
horse."     Then  Ben  fell  slightly  behind  and  I  heard  Sylvane 
again,  "That's  all  right  !     Come  along  !      Here,  vou  !     Go 
on,  you  !      Hi,  hi.  fellows,  help  me  out  !  he's  lying  on  me  !" 
Sure  enough,  he  was;    and  when  we  dragged 'Svlvane  from 
under  him  the  first   thing  the   rescued  Sylvane'  did  was  to 
execute  a  war-dance,  spurs  and  all.  on  the  iniquitous  Ben. 
We  could  do  nothing  with  him  that  day;    subsequently  we 
got  him  so  that  we  could  ride  him  ;    but  he  never  became  a 
nice  saddle-horse. 

As  with  all  other  forms  of  work,  so  on  the  round-up,  a 
man  of  ordinary  power,  who  nevertheless  does  not  shirk 
things  merely  because  they  are  disagreeable  or  irksome, 
soon  earns  his  place.  There  were  crack  riders  and  ropers 
who,  just  because  they  felt  such  overweening  pride  in  their 
own  prowess,  were  not  really  very  valuable  intn.  Contin- 
ually on  the  circles  a  cow  or  a  calf  would  get  into  some  thick 
patch  ofbulberry  bush  and  refuse  to  come  out  ;  or  when  it 
was  getting  late  we  would  pass  som'^  bad  lands  that  would 


120     THEODORK    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


probably  not  contain  cattle,  but  might ;  or  a  steer  would 
turn  fighting  mad,  or  a  calf  grow  tired  and  want  to  lie  down. 
If  in  such  a  case  the  man  steadily  persists  in  doing  the  un- 
attractive thing,  and  after  two  hours  of  exasperation  and 
harassment  does  finally  get  the  cow  out,  and  keep  her  out, 
of  the  bulberry  bushes,  and  drives  her  to  the  wagon,  or 
finds  some  animals  that  have  been  passed  by  in  the  fourth 
or  fifth  patch  of  bad  lands  he  hunts  through,  or  gets  the  calf 
up  on  his  saddle  and  takes  it  in  anyhow,  the  foreman  soon 
grows  to  treat  him  as  having  his  uses  and  as  being  an  asset 
of  worth  in  the  -ound-up,  even  though  neither  a  fancy  roper 
nor  a  fancy  rid^r. 

When  a  I  the  {Progressive  Convention  last  August,  I  met 
George  Meyer  for  the  first  time  in  many  years,  and  he  recalled 
to  me  an  incident  on  one  round-up  where  we  happened  to 
be  thrown  together  while  driving  some  cows  and  calves  to 
camp.  When  the  camp  was  only  just  across  the  river,  two 
of  the  calves  positively  refused  to  go  any  further.  He  took 
one  of  them  in  his  arms,  and  after  some  hazardous  maneuver- 
ing managed  to  get  on  his  horse,  in  spite  of  the  objections 
of  the  latter,  and  rode  into  the  river.  My  calf  was  too  big 
for  such  treatment,  so  in  despair  I  roped  it,  intending  to 
drag  it  over.  However,  as  soon  as  I  roped  it,  the  calf  started 
bouncing  and  bleating,  and,  owing  to  some  lack  of  dexterity 
on  my  part,  suddenl}-  swung  round  the  rear  of  the  horse, 
bringing  the  rope  undei  his  tail.  Down  went  the  tail 
tight,  and  the  horse  "went  iiito  figures,"  as  the  cow-puncher 
phrase  of  that  day  was.  There  was  a  cut  bank  about  four 
feet  high  on  the  hither  side  of  the  river,  and  over  this  the 
horse  bucked.  We  went  into  the  water  with  a  splash.  With 
a  "pluck"  the  calf  followed,  described  a  parabola  in  the  air, 
and  landed  beside  us.  Fortunately,  this  took  the  rope  out 
from  under  the  horse's  tail,  but  left  him  thoroughly 
frightened.  He  could  not  do  much  bucking  in  the  stream, 
for  there  were  one  or  two  places  where  we  had  to  swim,  and 
the  shallows  were  either  sandy  or  muddy ;  but  across  we 
went,  at  speed,  and  the  calf  made  a  wake  like  I^liaraoh's 
army  in  the  Red  Sea. 

On  several  occasions  we  had  ij  fight  fire.     In  the  geog- 


IN    COWBOY   LAND 


121 


raphy  books  of  my  youth  prairie  fires  were  always  por- 
trayed as  taking  place  in  long  grass,  and  all  living  things 
ran  before  them.  On  the  Northern  cattle  plains  the  grass 
was  never  long  enough  to  be  a  source  of  danger  to  man  or 
beast.  The  fires  were  nothing  like  the  forest  fires  in  the 
Northern   woods.      But   they  destroyed   large  quantities  of 


On  iul  Long  Cik',  ;.i 

feed,  and  we  had  to  stop  them  where  possibjr.  'Ilie  process 
we  usually  followed  was  to  kill  a  steer,  split  it  in  two  length- 
wise, and  then  have  two  riders  drag  each  half-steer,  the 
rope  of  one  running  from  his  saddle-horn  to  the  front  leg, 
and  that  of  the  other  to  the  iiind  leg.  One  of  the  men  would 
spur  this  horse  over  or  through  the  line  of  fire,  and  the 
two  would  then  ride  forward,  dragging  tlie  steer  blood\-  side 
downward  along  the  line  of  fiame,  men  following  oii  foot 
with  slickers  or  wet  horse-blankets  to  beat  out  aiu  llickering 
blaze  that  was  still  left.     It  was  ccitiui;  work.  Tor  the  fire 


! 

^ ! 


I'  \ 


122 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT- AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


and  the  twitching  and  plucking  of  the  ox  carcass  over  the 
uneven  ground  maddened  the  fierce  little  horses  so  that  jt 
was  necessary  to  do  some  riding  in  order  to  keep  them  to 
their  work.  After  a  while  it  also  became  very  exhausting, 
the  thirst  and  fatigue  being  great,  as,  with  parched  lips  and 
blackened  from  head  to  foot,  we  toiled  at  our  task. 

In  those  years  the  Stockman's  Association  of  Montana 
was  a  powerful  body.  I  was  the  delegate  to  it  from  the  Little 
Missouri.  The  meetings  that  I  attended  were  held  in 
Miles  City,  at  that  time  a  typical  cow  town.  Stockmen  of 
all  kinds  attended,  including  the  biggest  men  in  the  stock 
business,  men  like  old  Conrad  Kohrs,  who  was  and  is  the 
finest  type  of  pioneer  in  all  the  Rocky  Mountain  country ; 
and  Granville  Stewart,  who  was  afterwards  appomted 
Minister  by  Cleveland,  I  think  to  the  Argentine;  and 
"Hashknife"  Simpson,  a  Texan  who  had  brought  his  cattle, 
the  Hashknife  brand,  up  the  trail  into  our  country.  He  and 
I  grew  to  be  great  friends.  I  can  see  him  now  the  first  time 
we  met,  grinning  at  me  as,  none  too  comfortable,  I  sat  a 
half-broken  horse  at  the  edge  of  a  cattle  herd  we  were  work- 
ing. His  son  Sloan  Simpson  went  to  Harvard,  was  one  of 
the  first-class  men  in  my  regiment,  and  afterwards  held 
my  commission  as  Postmaster  at  Dallas. 

At  the  stockmen's  meeting  in  Miles  City,  in  addition  to 
the  big  stockmen,  there  were  always  hundreds  of  cowboys 
galloping  up  and  down  the  wide  dusty  streets  at  every  hour 
of  the  day  and  night.  It  was  a  picturesque  sight  during  the 
three  days  the  meetings  lasted.  There  was  always  at  least 
one  big  dance  at  the  hotel.  There  were  few  dress  suits,  but 
there  was  perfect  decorum  at  the  dance,  and  in  the  square 
dances  most  of  the  men  knew  the  figures  far  better  than  I 
did.  With  such  a  crowd  in  town,  sleeping  accommodations 
of  any  sort  were  at  a  premium,  and  in  the  hotel  there  were 
two  men  in  every  bed.  On  one  occasion  I  had  a  roommate 
whom  I  never  saw,  because  he  always  went  to  bed  much 
later  than  I  did  and  I  always  got  up  much  earlier  than  he 
did.  On  the  last  day,  however,  he  rose  at  the  same  time 
and  I  saw  that  he  was  a  man  I  knew  named  Carter,  and 
nicknamed  "Modesty"  Carter.     He  was  a  stalwart,  good- 


IN    C•()\\BO^    LAND 


123 


lookiiij;  fellow,  and  I  was  sorry  when  later  I  licard  that  he 
had  been  killed  in  a  shooting  row. 

When  I  went  West,  the  last  great  Indian  wars  had  just 
come  to  an  end,  but  there  were  still  sporadic  outbreaks 
here  and  there,  and  occasionally  bands  of  marauding  young 
braves  were  a  menace  to  outlying  and  lonely  settlements. 
Many  of  the  white  men  were  themselves  lawless  and  brutal, 
and  prone  to  commit  outrages  on  the  Indians.  L'n- 
fortunatcly,  each  race  tended  to  hold  all  the  members  of  the 
other  race  responsible  for  the  misdeeds  of  a  few,  so  that  the 
crime  of  the  miscreant,  red  or  white,  who  committed  the 
original  outrage  too  often  invited  retaliatioii  upon  entirely 
innocent  people,  and  this  action  would  in  its  turn  arouse 
bitter  feeling  which  found  vent  in  still  more  indiscriminate 
retaliation.  The  first  year  I  was  on  the  Little  Missouri 
some  Sioux  bucks  ran  off  all  the  horses  of  a  buffalo-hunter's 
outfit.  One  of  the  buffalo-hunters  tried  to  get  even  by 
stealing  the  horses  of  a  Cheyenne  hunting  party,  and  when 
pursued  made  for  a  cow  camp,  with,  as  a  result,  a  long- 
range  skirmish  betweei.  the  cowboys  and  the  Cheyennes. 
One  of  the  latter  was  wounded  ;  but  this  particular  wounded 
man  seemed  to  have  more  sense  than  the  other  participants 
in  the  chain  of  wrong-doing,  and  discriminated  among  the 
whites.     He  came  into  our  camp  and  had  his  wound  dressed. 

A  year  later  I  was  at  a  desolate  little  mud  road  ranch  on 
the  Deadwood  trail.  It  was  kept  by  a  very  capable  and 
very  forceful  woman,  with  sound  ideas  of  justice  and  abun- 
dantly well  abk  to  hold  her  own.  Her  husband  was  a  worth- 
less devil,  who  finally  got  drunk  on  some  whisky  he  obtained 
from  an  outfit  of  Missouri  bull-whackers  —  that  is,  freighters, 
driving  ox  wagons.  Under  the  stimulus  of  the  whisky  he 
picked  a  quarrel  with  his  wife  and  attempted  to  beat  her. 
She  knocked  him  down  with  a  stove-lid  lifter,  and  the  ad- 
miring bull  whackers  bore  him  off,  leaving  the  lady  in  full 
possession  of  the  ranch.  When  I  visited  her  she  had  a  man 
named  Crow  Joe  working  for  her,  a  slab-sided,  shifty-eyed 
person  who  later,  as  I  heard  my  foreman  explain,  "skipped 
the  country  with  a  bunch  of  horses."  The  mistress  of  the 
ranch  made  first-class  buckskin  shirts  of  great  durability. 


124 


■IIIKODORK    R(K)Si:\  KI.T  -  AN    Al  TOHIOCiRAPHV 


^ll 


The  (UK-  slu-  made  for  me,  and  which  I  M.-i-d  for  years, 
was  used  by  one  of  my  sons  in  Arizona  a  couple  of  winlers 
ago.  I  had  ridden  down  into  the  country  after  some  lost 
horses,  and  visited  the  ranch  to  get  iier  to  make  me  the  buck- 
skin shirt  in  question.  There  were,  at  the  moment,  three 
Indians  there,  Sioux,  well  behavvd  and  self-respecting,  and 
siie  explained  to  me  that  they  had  been  resting  there  waiting 
for  dinner,  and  that  a  white  man  had  come  along  and  tried 
to  run  off  their  horses.  The  Indians  were  on  the  lookout, 
however,  and,  running  out,  they  caught  the  man  ;  but,  after 
retaking  their  horses  and  depriving  him  of  his  gun,  they  let 
him  go.  "I  don't  see  why  they  let  him  go,"  exclaimed  my 
hostess.  "I  don't  believe  in  stealing  Indians'  horses  any 
more  than  white  folks' ;  so  I  told  'em  they  could  go  along  and 
hang  him  --  I'd  never  cheep.  Anyhow,  I  won't  charge 
them  anything  for  their  dinner,"  concluded  my  hostess. 
She  was  in  advance  of  the  usual  morality  of  the  time  and 
place,  which  drew  a  sharp  line  between  stealing  citizens' 
horses  an-,  stealing  horses  from  the  Government  or  the 
Indians. 

A  fairly  decent  citizen,  Jap  Hunt,  who  long  ago  met  a 
violent  death,  exemplified  this  attitude  towards  Indians  m 
some  remarks  I  once  heard  him  make.  He  had  started  a 
horse  ranch,  and  had  quite  honestly  purchased  a  number  of 
broken-down  horses  of  different  brands,  with  the  view  of 
doctoring  them  and  selling  them  again.  About  this  lime 
there  had  been  much  horse-stealing  and  cattle-killing  in  our 
Territory  and  in  Montana,  and  under  the  direction  of  some 
of  the  big  cattle-growers  a  committee  of  vigilantes  had  been 
organized  to  take  action  against  the  rustlers,  as  the  horse 
thieves  and  cattle  thieves  were  called.  The  vigilantes,  or 
stranglers,  as  they  were  locally  known,  did  their  work  thor- 
oughly;  but,  as  always  happens  with  bodies  of  the  kind, 
toward  the  end  they  grew  reckless  in  their  actions,  paid  off 
private  grudges,  and  hung  men  on  slight  provocation. 
Riding  into  Jap  Hunt's  ranch,  they  nearly  hung  him  be- 
cause he  had  so  many  horses  of  different  brands.  He  was 
finally  let  off.  He  was  much  upset  by  the  incident,  and 
explained   again  and  again,     "The  idea  of  saying  that   I 


IN   COWBOY    LAND 


I2S 


was  a  horse  thief !  Why,  I  never  stole  a  horse  in  my  lif'- 
—  leastways  from  a  white  man.  I  don't  count  Indians  nor 
the  Government,  of  course."  Jap  had  been  reared  among 
men  still  in  the  stage  of  tribal  morality,  a.'d  while  they  rec- 
ognized their  obligations  to  one  another,  both  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  Indians  seemed  alien  bodies,  in  regard  to  which 
the  laws  of  morality  did  not  apply. 

On  the  other  hand,  parties  of  savage  young  bucks  would 
treat  lonely  settlers  just  as  badly,  and  in  addition  sometimes 
murder  them.  Such  a  party  was  generally  composed  of 
young  fellows  burning  tf)  distinguish  themselves.  Some 
one  of  their  number  would  have  obtained  a  pass  from  the 
Indian  Agent  allowing  him  to  travel  off  the  reservation, 
which  pass  would  be  flourished  whenever  their  action  was 
questioned  by  bodies  of  whites  of  equal  strength.  I  once 
had  a  trifling  encounter  with  such  a  band.  I  was  making 
my  way  along  the  edge  of  the  bad  lands,  northward  from 
my  lower  ranch,  and  was  just  crossing  a  plateau  when  five 
Indians  rode  up  over  the  further  rim.  The  instant  they  saw 
me  they  whipped  out  their  guns  and  raced  full  speed  at  me, 
yelling  and  flogging  their  horses.  I  was  on  a  favorite  horse, 
Manitou,  who  was  a  wise  old  fellow,  with  nerves  not  to  be 
shaken  by  anything.  I  at  once  leaped  off  him  and  stood 
with  my  rifle  ready. 

It  was  possible  that  the  Indians  were  merely  making  a 
bluflF  and  intended  no  mischief.  But  I  did  not  like  their 
actions,  and  I  thought  it  likely  that  if  I  allowed  them  to 
get  hold  of  me  they  would  at  least  take  my  horse  and  rifle, 
and  possibly  kill  me.  So  I  waited  until  they  were  a  hundred 
yards  off  and  then  drew  a  bead  on  the  first.  Indians  —  and, 
for  the  matter  of  that,  white  men  —  do  not  like  to  ride  in  on 
a  man  who  is  cool  and  means  shooting,  and  in  a  twinkling 
every  man  was  lying  over  the  side  of  his  horse,  and  all  five 
had  turned  and  were  galloping  backwards,  having  altered 
their  course  as  quickly  as  so  many  teal  ducks. 

After  this  one  of  them  made  the  peace  sign,  with  his 
blanket  first,  and  then,  as  he  rode  toward  me.  with  his  open 
hand.  I  halted  him  at  a  fair  distance  and  asked  him  what 
he  wanted.     Hg  exclaimed,   "Howl     Me  good   Injun,  me 


126    THKOnoKK    ROOSKX  Kl.T  —  AN    AL  TOBKHiKAI'MV 


pood  Injun,"  and  tried  to  show  mc  the  dirty  piece  of  paper 
on  wliich  his  agency  pass  was  written.  I  told  him  with 
sincerity  tliat  I  was  glad  that  he  was  a  good  Indian,  but 
tliat  lie  must  not  conu-  any  closer.  He  then  asked  for  sugar 
and  tobacco.  I  tokl  him  I  had  none.  .Another  Indian  began 
slowly  drifting  toward  me  in  spite  of  my  calling  out  to  keep 
back,  so  I  once  more  aimed  with  my  rifle,  whereupon  both 
Indians  slipped  to  the  other  side  of  their  horses  and  galloped 
ofl",  with  oaths  that  did  credit  to  at  least  one  side  of  their 
acquaintance  with  I'.nglish.  I  now  mf)unted  and  pushed 
over  the  plateau  on  to  the  open  prairie.  In  those  days  an 
Indian,  although  not  as  good  a  shot  as  a  white  man,  was 
infinitely  better  at  crawling  under  and  taking  advantage  of 
cover;  and  the  worst  thing  a  white  man  could  do  was  to  get 
into  cover,  whereas  out  in  the  open  if  he  kept  his  head  he  h.' J 
a  g<K)d  chance  of  standing  off  even  half  a  dozen  assailants. 
The  Indians  accompanied  me  for  a  couple  of  miles.  Then 
I  reached  the  open  prairie,  .id  resumed  my  northward 
ride,  not  being  further  molestcti. 

In  the  old  da\s  in  the  ranch  country  we  depended  upon 
game  for  fresh  meat,  \obod_\-  liked  to  kill  a  beef,  and  al- 
though now  and  tnen  a  maverick  yearling  might  be  killed 
on  the  round-up,  most  of  us  looked  askance  at  the  deed, 
because  if  the  practice  of  beef-killing  was  ever  allowed  to 
start,  the  rustlers  the  horse  tliieves  and  cattle  thieves  - 
would  be  sure  to  seize  on  it  as  an  e.xcusc  for  general  slaughter, 
(k'tting  meat  for  the  ranch  usually  devolved  upon  me.  I 
almost  always  carried  a  rifle  when  I  rode,  either  in  a  scab- 
bard under  my  thigh,  or  across  the  pommel.  Often  I  would 
pick  up  a  deer  or  antelope  while  about  my  regular  work, 
when  visiting  a  line  camp  or  riding  after  the  cattle.  At 
other  times  I  would  make  a  day's  trip  after  them.  In  the 
fall  we  sometimes  took  a  wagon  and  made  a  week's  hunt, 
returning  with  eight  or  ten  deer  carcasses,  and  perhaps  an 
elk  or  a  mountain  sheep  as  well.  I  never  became  more  than 
a  fair  hunter,  and  at  times  I  had  tnost  exasperating  experi- 
ences, either  failing  to  see  game  which.  I  ough.t  Xo  have  '^een-. 
or  committing  some  blunder  in  the  stalk,  or  failing  to  kill 
when  I  fin-d.     Looking  back,  I  am  inclined  to  say  that  if  I 


IN   COWBOY   I  ^\1) 


ii7 


had  any  ^ood  quality  as  a  luinti-r  it  was  that  of  pcrsi-vrrancr. 

'It  's  dogKfd  that  dnrs  it"  in  hunting  as  in  many  (.tlu-r 
thit.^s.  Lnlfss  in  wholly  txuptional  cases,  wlu-n  \vc  witc 
very  hungry,  I  never  killed  anything  but  bucks. 

Occasionally  I  made  lon^  trips  away  from  the  ranch  and 
among  the  Rocky  Mountains  With  mv  rancii  foreman  Merri- 
field;    or  in  later  years  with    Tazewe'll  W'oodv,   )ohn  Willis 
or  John  Cuff.     W'e  hunted   bears,  both  the  black  and    the 
grizzly,  cougars  and  wolves,  and  moose,  wapiti,  and  white 
goat      On  one  of  these  trips  I  killed  a  bison  bull,  and  I  also 
killed  a  bison  bull  on  the  Little  Missouri  some  fifty  miles 
south  of  my  rancii  on  a  trip  which  Joe  Ferris  and   I  took 
together.      It  was  rather  a  rough  trip.     Kach  of  us  carried 
only  his  slicker  behind  him  on  the  saddle,  with  some  tiour 
and  bacon  done  up  in  it.      We  met  with  all  kinds  of  mis- 
adventures.    I'lnally  one  night,  when    we  were  sleeping  bv 
a  slimy  little  prairie  pool  where  there  was  not  a  stick  of  wood, 
we  had  to  tie  the  horses  to  the  horns  of  our  saddles:    and 
then  we  went  to  sleep  with  our  heads  on   the  saddles.      In 
the  middle  of  the  night  something  stampeded  the  horses 
and  awa\-  they  went,  with  the  saddles  after  them.     As  we 
jumped  to  our  feet  Joe  e>ed  me  with  an  evident  suspicion 
that  I  was  the  Jonah  of  the  partv,  and  said  :    "O  Lord  1     /'rr 
never  done  anything  to  deserve'  this.      Did  you  ever  do  anv- 
Ihing  to  deserve  this  .'" 

In  addition  to  my  private  duties,  I  sometimes  served  as 
deputy  sheriff  for  the  northern   end  of  our  county.     The 
sheriff  and  I  crisscrossed  in  our  public  and  private  relations 
He  often  worked  for  me  as  a  hired  hand  at  the  same  time 
that  I  was  his  deputy.     His  name,  or  at  least  the  name  he 
went  by,  was  Bill  Jones,  and  as  there  were  in  the  neighbor- 
hood several  Bill  Joneses       Three  Seven  Bill    'ones,  Te.xas 
Bill  Jones,  and   the  like  —  the  sheriff  was  known  as  Hell 
Roaring    Bill    Jones.     He    was    a    thorough    frontiersman, 
excellent  in  all  kinds  of  emergencies,  and  a  vcrv  game  man. 
I  became  much  attached  to  him.       He  was  a  thoroughlv 
good  citizen  when  sober,  but  he  was  a  little  wild  when  drunk. 
Unfortunately,  toward  the  end  of  his  life  he  got  to  drinking 
very  heavilv.     When,  in  igo^,  fohn  Burroughs  and  I  visited 


I2«'IHEODORE    ROOSE\  ELI"  —  AN    ALTOBIOGRAPHV 

the  Yellowstone  Park,  poor  Bill  Jones,  very  much  down  in 
the  world,  was  driving  ..  team  in  Gardiner  outside  the  park. 
I  had  looked  forward  to  seeing  him,  and  he  was  equally 
anxious  to  see  me.  He  kept  telling  his  cronies  of  our  in- 
timacy and  of  what  we  were  going  to  do  together,  and  then 
got  drinking;  and  the  result  was  that  by  the  time  I  reached 
Gardiner  he  had  to  be  carried  out  and  left  in  the  sage-brush. 


Sheriff  Dity 
"  When  1  served  as  deputy  sheriff  for  the  northern  end  c.f  our  county." 


When  I  came  out  of  the  park,  I  sent  on  in  advance  to  tell 
them  to  be  sure  to  keep  him  sober,  and  they  did  so.  But  it 
was  a  rather  sad  interview.  The  old  fellow  had  gone  to 
pieces,  and  soon  after  I  left  he  got  lost  in  a  blizzard  and  was 
dead  when  they  found  him. 

Bill  Jones  was  a  gun-fighter  and  also  a  good  man  with  his 
fists.  On  one  occasion  there  was  an  election  in  town.  There 
had  been  many  threats  that  the  party  of  disorder  would 
import  section  hands  from  the  neighboring  railway  stations 


IN   COWBOY   LAND  ,29 

to  down  our  side.  I  did  not  reach  Medora,  the  forlorn  little 
cattle  town  which  was  our  county  seat,  until  the  election  was 
well  under  way.  I  then  asked  one  of  my  friends  if  there 
had  been  any  disorder.  Bill  Jones  was  standing  by.  "  Dis- 
order hell  !  said  my  friend.  "Bill  Jones  just  stood  there 
with  one  hand  on  his  gun  and  the  other  pointing  over  toward 
the  new  jail  whenever  any  man  who  didn't  have  a  right  to 
vote  came  near  the  polls.  There  was  only  one  of  them  tried 
to  vote,  and  Bill  knocked  him  down.  Lord  !"  added  my 
friend,  meditatively,  "the  way  that  man  fell'"  "Well" 
struck  in  Bill  Jones,  "if  he  hadn't  fell  I'd  have  walked  round 
behind  him  to  see  what  was  propping  him  up  !" 

In  the  days  when  I  lived  on  the  ranch  I  usually  spent  most 
ot  the  winter  in  the  East,  and  when  I  returned  in  the  early 
spring  I  was  always  interested  in  finding  out  what  had  hap- 
pened since  my  departure.     On  one  occasion  I  was  met  by 
Bill  Jones  and  Sylvane  Ferris,  and  in  the  course  of  our  con- 
versation  they  mentioned   "the  lunatic."     This   led   to  a 
question  on  my  part,  and  Sylvane  Ferris  began  the  story: 
Well,  you  see,  he  was  on  a  train  and  he  shot  the  newsboy. 
At  first  they  weren't  going  to  do  anything  to  him,  for  they 
thought  he  just  had  it  in  for  the  newsboy.     But  then  some- 
body said,  'Why,  he's  plumb  crazy,  and  he's  liable  to  shoot 
any  of  us!    and  then  they  threw  him  off  the  train.     It  was 
here  at  Medora,  and  they  asked  if  anybody  would  take  care 
of  him,  and  Bill  Jones  said  he  would,  because  he  was  the 
sheriff  and  the  jail  had  two  rooms,  and  he  was  living  in  one 
and  would  put  the  lunatic  in  the  other."     Here  Bill  Jones 
interrupted:    "Yes,  and  more  fool  me!     I  wouldn't  take 
u/u*"^"  /     another  lunatic  if  the  whole   county  asked  me. 
Why      (with  the  air  of  a  man  announcing  an  astounding 
discovery),  "that  lunatic  didn't  have  his  right  senses  !     He 
wouldn  t  eat,  till  me  and  Snyder  got  him  down  on  the  shav- 
ings and   made  him  eat."      Snyder  was  a   huge,  happy-go- 
lucky,  kind-hearted  Pennsylvania  Dutchman,  and  was  Bill 
Jones  s  chief  depi;ty.     Bill  continued  :  "  You  know,  Snyder's 
soft-hearted    he  is.     Well,   he'd  think  that  lunatic  looked 
peaked,  and  he  d  take  him  out  for  an  airing.     Then  the  boys 
would  get  joshing  him  as  to  how  much  start  he  could  give 


,30    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

him  over  the  prairie  and  catch  him  again."  Apparently 
the  amount  of  the  start  given  the  lunatic  depended  upon  the 
amount  of  the  bet  to  which  the  joshing  led  up.  I  asked  Bill 
what  he  would  have  done  if  Snyder  hadn  t  caught  the 
lunatic  This  was  evidently  a  new  idea,  and  he  responded 
that  Snyder  always  did  catch  him  "Well,  but  suppose 
he  hadn't  caught  him.'"  "Well,"  said  Bil  Jones,  1 
Snyder  hadn't  caught  the  lunatic,  I'd  have  whaled  hell  out  ot 

Snyder!"  ^      ^  u-    u    .       j     1 

Under  these  circumstances  Snyder  ran  his  best  and  al- 
ways did  catch  the  patient.  It  must  not  be  gathered  frorn 
this  that  the  lunatic  was  badly  treated.  He  \vas  well 
treated.  He  became  greatly  attached  to  both  Bill  Jones 
and  Snyder,  and  he  objected  strongly  when,  after  the  frontier 
theory  of  treatment  of  the  insane  had  received  a  full  trial, 
he  was  finally  sent  oflF  to  the  territorial  capital.  It  was 
merely  that  all  the  relations  of  life  in  that  place  and  day  were 
so  managed  as  to  give  ample  opportunity  for  the  expresMon 
of  individuality,  whether  in  sheriff  or  ranchman.  Ihe 
local  practical  joker  once  attempted  to  have  some  fun  at 
the  expense  of  the  lunatic,  and  Bill  Jones  described  the  result. 
"You  know  Bixby,  don't  you?  Well,"  with  deep  dis- 
approval, "Bixby  thinks  he  is  funny,  he  does.  He  d  come 
and  he'd  wake  that  lunatic  up  at  night,  and  I'd  have  to  get 
up  and  soothe  him.  I  fixed  Bixby  all  right,  though.  1 
fastened  a  rope  on  the  latch,  and  next  time  Bixby  came  .  let 
the  lunatic  out  on  him.     He  'most  bit  Bixby  s  nose  off.     1 

learned  Bixby ! "  .       ,   .         ,  1  .• 

Bill  Jones  had  been  unconventional  in  other  relations 
besides  that  of  sheriflF.  He  once  casually  mentioned  to  me 
that  he  had  served  on  the  police  force  of  Bismarck,  but  he 
had  left  because  he  "beat  the  Mayor  over  the  head  with  his 
gun  one  day."  He  added  :  "The  Mayor,  he  didn't  mind  it, 
but  the  Superintendent  of  Police  said  he  guessed  I  d  better 
resign."  His  feeling,  obviously,  was  that  the  Superintendent 
of  Police  was  a  martinet,  unfit  to  take  large  views  of  life. 

It  was  while  with  Bill  Jones  that  I  first  made  acquaintance 
with  Seth  Bullock.  Seth  was  at  that  time  sheriff  in  the 
Black  Hills  district,  and  a  man  he  had  wanted  —  a  horse 


IN  COWBOY  LAND 


131 


thief  —  I  finally  got   I  being  at  the  time  deputy  sheriff  two 
or  three  hundred  miles  to  the  north.     The  man  went  by  a 
nickname  which  I  will  call  "Crazy  Steve";  a  year  or  two 
afterwards  I  received  a  letter  asking  about  him  from  his 
uncle,  a  thoroughly  respectable  man  in  a  Western  State- 
and  later  this  uncle  and  I  met  at  Washington  when  I  was' 
President  and  he  a  United  States  Senator.     It  was  some 
time  after     Steve's"  capture  that  I  went  down  to  Dead- 
wood  on  business,  Sylvane  Ferris  and  I  on  horseback,  while 
BUI  Jones  drove  the  wagon.     At  a  little  town,  Spearfish 
1  think,  after  crossing  the  last  eighty  or  ninety  miles  of 
gumbo  prairie   we  met  Seth  Bullock.     We  had  had  rather  a 
rough  trip,  and  had  lain  out  for  a  fortnight,  so  I  suppose  we 
looked  somewhat  unkempt.     Seth  received  us  with  rather 
distant  courtesy  at  first,  but  unbent  when  he  found  out  who 
we  were,  remarking,  "You  see,  by  your  look'  I  thought  you 
were  some  kind  of  a  tin-horn  gambling  outfit,  and  that  I 
might  have  to  keep  an  eye  on  you!"     He  then  inquired 
after  the  capture  of  "Steve"  —  with  a  little  of  the  air  of  one 
sportsman  when  another  has  shot  a  quail  that  either  might 
have  claimed  — "My  bird,  I  believe.?"     Later  Seth  Bul- 
lock became,  and  has  ever  since  remained,  one  of  my  stanch- 
est  and  most  valued  friends.     He   served  as   Marshal   for 
5)outh  Dakota    under  me  as  President.      When,  after    the 
close  of  my  term,  I  went  to  Africa,  on  getting  back  to  Europe 
1  cabled  Seth  Bullock  to  bring  over  Mrs.  Bullock  and  meet 
me  in  London,  which  he  did ;  by  that  time  I  felt  that  I  just 
had  to  meet  my  own  people,  who  spoke  my  neighborhood 

When  serving  as  deputy  sheriff  I  was  impressed  with  the 
advantage  the  officer  of  the  law  has  over  ordinary  wrong- 
doers, provided  he  thoroughly  knows  his  own  mind.  There 
are  exceptional  outlaws,  men  with  a  price  on  their  heads 
and  of  remarkable  prowess,  who  are  utterly  indifferent  to 
taking  life,  and  whose  warfare  against  society  is  as  open  as 
that  of  a  savage  on  the  war-path.  The  law  officer  has  no 
advantage  whatever  over  these  men  save  what  his  own 
prowess  may  —  or  may  not  —  give  him.  Such  a  man  was 
Billy  the  Kid,  the  notorious  man-killer  and  desperado  of 


132    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

New  Mexico,  who  was  himself  finally  slain  by  a  friend  of 
mine,  Pat  Garrett,  whom,  when  I  was  President,  I  made 
collector  of  customs  at  El  Paso.  But  the  ordinary  criminal, 
even  when  murderously  inclined,  feels  just  a  moment's 
hesitation  as  to  whether  he  cares  to  kill  an  officer  of  the  law 
engaged  in  his  duty.  I  took  in  more  than  one  man  who  was 
probably  a  better  man  than  I  was  with  both  rifle  and  re- 
volver ;  but  in  each  case  I  knew  just  what  I  wanted  to  do, 
and,  like  David  Harum,  I  "did  it  first,"  whereas  the  frac- 
tion of  a  second  that  the  other  man  hesitated  put  him  in  a 
position  where  it  was  useless  for  him  to  resist. 

I  owe  more  than  I  can  ever  express  to  the  West,  which  of 
course  means  to  the  men  and  women  I  met  in  the  West. 
There  were  a  few  people  of  bad  type  in  my  neighborhood  — 
that  would  be  true  of  every  group  of  men,  even  in  a  theo- 
logical seminary  • —  but  I  could  not  speak  with  too  great  affec- 
tion and  respect  of  the  great  majority  of  my  friends,  the  hard- 
working men  and  women  who  dwelt  for  a  space  of  perhaps 
a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  along  the  Little  Missouri.  I  was 
always  as  welcome  at  their  houses  as  they  were  at  mine. 
Everybody  worked,  everybody  was  willing  to  help  every- 
body else,  and  yet  nobody  asked  any  favors.  The  same 
thing  was  true  of  the  people  whom  I  got  to  know  fifty  miles 
east  and  fifty  miles  w^ st  of  my  own  range,  and  of  the  men 
I  met  on  the  round-ups.  They  soon  accepted  me  as  a 
friend  and  fellow-worker  who  stood  on  an  equal  footing  with 
them,  and  I  believe  that  most  of  them  have  kept  their  feel- 
ing for  me  ever  since.  No  guests  were  ever  more  welcome 
at  the  White  House  than  these  old  friends  of  the  cattle 
ranches  and  the  cow  camps  —  the  men  with  whom  I  had 
ridden  the  long  circle  and  eaten  at  the  tail-board  of  a  chuck- 
wagon  —  whenever  they  turned  up  at  Washington  during 
my  Presidency.  I  remem^pcr  one  of  them  who  appeared  at 
Washington  one  day  just  before  lunch,  a  huge,  powerful 
man  who,  when  I  knew  him,  had  been  distinctly  a  fighting 
character.  It  happened  that  on  that  day  another  old  friend, 
the  British  Ambassador,  Mr.  Bryce,  was  among  those 
coming  tc  lunch.  Just  befoife  we  went  in  I  turned  to  my 
cow-puncher  friend  and  said  to  him  with  great  solemnity, 


IN  COWBOY  LAND 


133 


"Remember,  Jim,  that  if  you  shot  at  the  feet  of  the  British 
Ambassador  to  make  him  dance,  it  would  be  likely  to  cause 
international  complications";  to  which  Jim  responded  with 
unaffected  horror,  "Why,  Colonel,  I  shouldn't  think  of  it, 
I  shouldn't  think  of  it!" 

Not  only  did  the  men  and  women  whom  I  met  in  the  cow 
country  quite  unconsciously  help  me,  by  the  insight  which 
working  and  living  with  them  enabled  me  to  get  into  the 
mind  and  soul  of  the  average  American  of  the  right  type, 
but  they  helped  me  in  another  way.  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  the  men  were  of  just  the  kind  whom  it  would  be  well 
to  have  with  me  if  ever  it  became  necessary  to  go  to  war. 
When  the  Spanish  War  came,  I  gave  this  thought  practical 
realization. 

J'crtunately,  Wister  and  Remington,  with  pen  and  pencil, 
have  made  these  men  live  as  long  as  our  literature  lives.  I 
have  sometimes  been  asked  if  Wister's  "Virginian"  is  not 
overdrawn ;  why,  one  of  the  men  I  have  mentioned  in  this 
chapter  was  in  all  essentials  the  Virginian  in  real  life,  not 
only  in  his  force  but  in  his  charm.  Half  of  the  men  I  worked 
with  or  played  with  and  half  of  the  men  who  soldiered  with 
me  afterwards  in  my  regiment  might  have  walked  out  of 
Wister's  stories  or  Remington's  pictures. 

There  were  bad  characters  in  the  Western  country  at  that 
time,  of  course,  and  under  the  conditions  of  life  they  were 
probably  more  dangerous  than  they  would  have  been  else- 
where. I  hardly  ever  had  any  difficulty,  however.  I  never 
went  into  a  saloon,  and  in  the  little  hotelt  kept  out  of  the 
bar-room  unless,  as  sometimes  happened,  tue  bar-room  was 
the  only  room  on  the  lower  floor  except  the  dining-room.  I 
always  endeavored  to  keep  out  of  a  quarrel  until  self-respect 
forbade  my  making  any  further  effort  to  avoid  it,  and  I  very 
rarely  had  even  the  semblance  of  trouble. 

Of  course  amusing  incidents  occurred  now  and  then. 
Usually  these  took  place  when  I  was  hunting  lost  horses, 
for  in  hunting  lost  horses  I  was  ordinarily  alone,  and  occasion- 
ally had  to  travel  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
away  from  my  own  country.  On  one  such  occasion  I  reached 
a  little  cow  town  long  after  dark,  stabled  my  horse  in  an 


134    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

empty  outbuilding,  and  when  I  reached  the  hotel  was  in- 
formed in  response  to  my  request  for  a  bed  that  I  could  have 
the  last  one  left,  as  there  was  only  one  other  man  in  it.  The 
room  to  which  I  was  shown  contained   two  double  beds ; 


'SeTH   Bl'LLOCK   BECAME,   AND  HAS  EVER   SINCE   REUAINED,   ONE    OP    MY 
STANCHEST  AND   MOST   VALUED   FRIENDS." 


one  contained  two  men  fast  asleep,  and  the  other  only  one 
man,  also  asleep.  This  man  proved  to  be  a  friend,  one  of 
the  Bill  Joneses  whom  I  have  previously  mentioned.  I 
undressed  according  to  the  fashion  of  the  day  and  place,  that 
is,  I  put  my  trousers,  boots,  shaps,  and  gun  down  beside  the 


IN  COWBOY  LAND 


135 


bed,  and  turned  in.     A  couple  of  hours  later  I  was  awakened 
by  the  door  being  thrown  open  and  a  lantern  flashed  in  my 
face,   the  light  gleaming  on  the  muzzle  of  a  cocked   .45. 
Another  man  said  to  the  lantern-bearer.      "It  ain't  him"; 
the  next  moment  my  bedfellow  was  covered  with  two  guns,' 
and  addressed,  "Now,  Bill,  don't  make  a  fuss,  but  come 
along  quiet.''     "I'm  not  thinking  of  making  a  fuss,"  said 
Bill.     "That's  right,"  was  the  answer;  "we're  your  fr' .nds  ; 
we  don't  want  to  hurt  you  ;  we  just  want  you  to  come  along, 
you  know  why."     And  Bill  pulled  on  his  trousers  and  boots 
and  walked  out  with  them.     Up  to  this  time  there  had  not 
been   a  sound   from    the  other    bed.     Now  a    match   was 
scratched,  a  candle  lit,  and  one  of  the  men  in  the  other  bed 
looked   round   the  room.     At  this  point  I  committed   the 
breach  of  etiquette  of  asking  questions.     "I  wonder  why 
they  took  Bill,"  I  said.     There  was  no  answer,  and  I  re- 
peated, "I  wonder  why  they  took  Bill."     "Well,"  said  the 
man  with  the  candle,  dryly,  "I  reckon  they  wanted  him," 
and  with  that  he  blew  out  the  candle  and  conversation 
ceased.     Later  I  discovered  that  Bill  in  a  fit  of  playfulness 
had  held  up  the  Northern  Pacific  train  at  a  near-by  station 
by  shooting  at  the  feet  of  the  conductor  to  make  him  dance. 
This  was  purely  a  joke  on  Bill's  part,  but  the  Northern 
Pacific  people  possessed  a  less  robust  sense  of  humor,  and 
on  their  complaint  the  United  States  Marshal  was  sent  after 
Bill,  on  the  ground  that  by  delaying  the  train  he  had  inter- 
fered with  the  mails. 

The  only  time  I  ever  had  serious  trouble  was  at  an  even 
more  primitive  little  hotel  than  the  one  in  question.  It  was 
also  on  an  occasion  when  I  was  out  after  lost  horses.  Below 
the  hotel  had  merely  a  bar-room,  a  dining-room,  and  a  lean- 
to  kitchen  ;  above  was  a  loft  with  fifteen  or  twenty  beds  in  it. 
It  was  late  in  the  evening  when  I  reached  the  place.  I  heard 
one  or  two  shots  in  the  bar-room  as  I  came  up,  and  I  dis- 
liked going  in.  But  there  was  nowhere  else  to  go,  and  it  was 
a  cold  night.  Inside  the  room  were  several  men,  who,  in- 
cluding the  bartender,  were  wearing  the  kind  of  smile  worn 
by  men  who  are  making  believe  to  like  what  they  don't  like. 
A  shabby  individual  in  a  broad  hat  with  a  cocked  gun  in 


\  i  !< 


136    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

each  hand  was  walking  up  and  down  the  floor  talking  with 
strident  profanity.  He  had  evidently  been  shooting  at  the 
clock,  which  had  two  or  three  holes  in  its  face. 

He  was  not  a  "bad  man"  of  the  really  dangerous  type,  the 
true  man-killer  type,  but  he  was  an  objectionable  creature, 
a  would-be  bad  man,  a  bully  who  for  the  moment  was 
having  things  all  his  own  way.  As  soon  as  he  saw  me  he 
hailed  me  as  "Four  eyes,"  in  reference  to  my  spectacles, 
and  said,  "Four  eyes  is  going  to  treat."  I  joined  in  the 
laugh  and  got  behind  the  stove  and  sat  down,  thinking  to 
escape  no;  ce.  He  followed  me,  however,  and  though  I 
tried  to  pass  it  oflF  as  a  jest  this  merely  made  him  more  offen- 
sive, and  he  stood  leaning  over  me,  a  gun  in  each  hand,  using 
very  foul  language.  He  was  foolish  to  stand  so  near,  and, 
moreover,  his  heels  were  close  together,  so  thac  his  position 
was  unstable.  Accordingly,  in  response  to  his  reiterated 
command  that  I  should  set  up  the  drinks,  I  said,  "Well, 
if  I've  got  to,  I've  got  to,"  and  rose,  looking  past  him. 

As  I  rose,  I  struck  quick  and  hard  with  my  right  just  to 
one  side  of  the  point  of  his  jaw,  hitting  with  my  left  as  I 
straightened  out,  and  then  again  with  my  right.  He  fired 
the  guns,  but  I  do  not  know  whether  this  was  merely  a 
convulsive  action  of  his  hands  or  whether  he  was  trying  to 
-'-oot  at  me.  When  he  went  down  he  struck  the  corner  of 
the  bar  with  his  head.  It  was  not  a  case  in  which  one  could 
afford  to  take  chances,  and  if  he  had  moved  I  was  about  to 
drop  on  his  ribs  with  my  knees ;  but  he  was  senseless.  I 
took  away  his  guns,  and  the  other  people  in  the  room,  who 
were  now  loud  in  their  denunciation  of  him,  hustled  him  out 
and  put  him  in  a  shed.  I  got  dinner  as  soon  as  possible, 
sitting  in  a  corner  of  the  dining-room  away  from  the  win- 
dows, and  then  went  upstairs  to  bed  where  it  was  dark  so 
that  there  would  be  no  chance  of  any  one  shooting  at  me 
from  the  outside.  However,  nothing  happened.  When 
my  assailant  came  to,  he  went  down  to  the  station  and  left 
on  a  freight. 

As  I  have  said,  most  of  the  men  of  my  regiment  were  jusl 
such  men  as  those  I  knew  in  the  ranch  country;  indeed, 
some  of  my   ranch   friends   were   in   the   regiment  —  Fred 


IN  COWBOY  LAND 


137 


Herrig,  the  forest  ranger,  for  instance,  in  whose  company  I 
shot  my  biggest  mountain  ram.  After  the  regiment  was 
disbanded  the  careers  of  certain  of  the  men  were  diversified 
by  odd  incidents.  Our  relations  were  of  the  friendliest, 
and,  as  they  explained,  they  felt  *'as  if  I  was  a  father"  to 
them.  The  manifestations  of  this  feeling  were  sometimes 
less  attractive  than  the  phrase  sounded,  as  it  was  chiefly 
used  by  the  few  who  were  behaving  like  very  bad  children 
indeed.  The  great  majority  of  the  men  when  the  regiment 
disbanded  took  up  the  business  of  their  lives  where  they  had 
dropped  it  a  few  months  previously,  and  these  men  merely 
tried  to  help  me  or  help  one  another  as  the  occasion  arose; 
no  man  ever  had  more  cause  to  be  proud  of  his  regiment 
than  I  had  of  mine,  both  in  war  and  in  peace.  But  there 
was  a  minority  among  them  who  in  certain  ways  were  un- 
suited  for  a  life  of  peaceful  regularity,  although  often  enough 
they  had  been  first-class  soldiers. 

It  was  from  these  men  that  letters  came  with  a  stereotyped 
opening  which  always  caused  my  heart  to  sink  —  "Dear 
Colonel :  I  write  you  because  I  am  in  trouble."  The 
trouble  might  take  almost  any  form.  One  correspondent 
continued  :  "I  did  not  take  the  horse,  but  they  say  I  did." 
Another  complained  that  his  mother-in-law  had  put  him  in 
jail  for  bigamy.  In  the  case  of  another  the  incident  was 
more  markworthy.  I  will  call  him  Gritto.  He  wrote  me  a 
letter  beginning  :  "Dear  Colonel :  I  write  you  because  I  am 
in  trouble.  I  have  shot  a  lady  in  the  eye.  But,  Colonel, 
I  was  not  shooting  at  the  lady.  I  was  shooting  at  my  wife," 
which  he  apparently  regarded  as  a  sufficient  excuse  as 
between  men  of  the  world.  I  answered  that  I  drew  the  line 
at  shooting  at  ladies,  and  did  not  hear  any  more  of  the  in- 
cident for  several  years. 

Then,  while  I  was  President,  a  member  of  the  regiment. 
Major  Llewellyn,  who  was  Federal  District  Attorney  under 
me  in  New  Mexico,  wrote  me  a  letter  filled,  as  his  letters 
usually  were,  with  bits  of  interesting  gossip  about  the  com- 
rades. It  ran  in  part  as  follows:  "Since  I  last  wrote  you 
Comrade  Ritchie  has  killed  a  man  in  Colorado.  I  under- 
stand that  the  comrade  was  playing  a  poker  game,  and  the 


138    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


man  sat  into  the  game  and  used  such  language  that  Comrade 
Ritchie  had  to  shoot.  Comrade  Webb  has  killed  two  men 
in  Beaver,  Arizona.  Comrade  Webb  is  in  the  Forest  Serv- 
ice, and  the  killing  was  in  the  line  of  professional  duty.  I 
was  out  at  the  penitentiary  the  other  day  and  saw  Comrade 
Gritto,  who,  you  may  remember,  was  put  there  for  shooting 
his  sister-in-law  [this  was  the  first  information  I  had  had  as 
to  the  identity  of  the  lady  who  was  shot  in  the  eye].  Since 
he  was  in  there  Comrade  Boyne  has  run  off  to  old  Mexico 
with  his  (Gritto's)  wife,  and  the  people  of  Grant  County 
think  he  ought  to  be  let  out."  Evidently  the  sporting  in- 
stincts of  the  people  of  Grant  County  had  been  roused,  and 
they  felt  that,  as  Comrade  Boyne  had  had  a  fair  start,  the 
other  comrade  should  be  let  out  in  order  to  see  what  would 
happen. 

The  men  of  the  regiment  always  enthusiastically  helped 
me  when  I  was  running  for  office.  On  one  occasion  Buck 
Taylor,  of  Texas,  accompanied  me  on  a  trip  and  made  a 
speech  for  me.  The  crowd  took  to  his  speech  from  the 
beginning  and  so  did  I,  until  the  peroration,  which  ran  as 
follows  :  "My  fellow-citizens,  vote  for  my  Colonel  !  vote  for 
my  Colonel !  and  he  will  lead  you,  as  he  led  us,  like  sheep  to  the 
slaughter!"  This  hardly  seemed  a  tribute  to  my  military 
skill ;  but  it  delighted  the  crowd,  and  as  far  as  I  could  tell 
did  me  nothing  but  good. 

On  another  tour,  when  I  was  running  for  Vice-President, 
a  member  of  the  regiment  who  was  along  on  the  train  got  into 
a  discussion  with  a  Populist  editor  who  had  expressed  an 
unfavorable  estimate  of  my  character,  and  in  the  course  of 
the  discussion  shot  the  editor  —  not  fatally.  We  had  to 
leave  him  to  be  tried,  and  as  he  had  no  money  I  left  him 
$150  to  hire  counsel  —  having  borrowed  the  money  from 
Senator  Wolcott,  of  Colorado,  who  was  also  with  me.  After 
election  I  received  from  my  friend  a  letter  running;  "Dear 
Colonel :  I  find  I  will  not  have  to  use  that  ^150  you  lent  me, 
as  we  have  elected  our  candidate  for. District  Attorney. 
So  I  have  used  it  to  settle  a  horse  transaction  in  which  I 
unfortunately  became  involved."  A  few  weeks  later, 
however,  I  received  a  heartbroken  letter  setting  forth  the 


Copyrlgbt,  by  Mrs.  Frederic  Remington. 

The  Broncho  Bustkr,  by  Fredkkic  Rfuincton. 

Presented  to  Colonel  Roosevelt  on  September  15,  1 8g8,  by  his  regiment  at  Camp  Wikuff. 
Montauk  Pomt,  where  the  Rough  Riders  were  disbanded  at  the  close  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War. 


I40    THF.ODORK    ROOSEV  KLT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


fact  that  the  District  Attorney  —  whom  he  evidently  felt  to 
be  a  cold-bl(Kided  formalist  —  had  put  him  in  jail.  Then 
the  affair  dropped  out  of  sight  until  two  or  three  years  later, 
when  as  President  I  visited  a  town  in  another  State,  and  the 
leaders  of  the  delegation  which  received  me  included  both 
my  correspondent  and  the  editor,  now  fast  friends,  and  both 
of  them  ardent  supporters  of  mine. 

At  one  of  the  regimental  reunions  a  man,  who  had  been  an 
excellent  soldier,  in  greeting  me  mentioned  how  glad  he  was 
that  the  judge  had  let  him  out  in  time  to  get  to  the  reunion. 
I  asked  what  was  the  matter,  and  he  replied  with  some  sur- 
prise :  "Why,  Colonel,  don't  you  know  I  had  a  difficulty  with 
a  gentleman,  and  .  .  .  er  .  .  .  well,  1  killed  the  gentle- 
man. But  you  can  see  that  the  judge  thought  it  was  all 
right  or  he  wouldn't  have  let  me  go."  Waiving  the  latter 
point,  I  said  :  "How  did  it  happen  }  How  did  you  do  it  V 
Misinterpreting  my  question  as  showing  an  interest  only  in 
the  technique  of  the  performance,  the  ex-puncher  replied  : 
"With  a  .38  on  a  .45  frame.  Colonel."  I  chuckled  over  the 
answer,  and  it  became  proverbial  with  my  family  and  some 
of  my  friends,  including  Scth  Bullock.  When  I  was  shot  at 
Milwaukee,  Seth  Bullock  wired  an  inquiry  to  which  I  re- 
sponded that  it  was  all  right,  that  the  weapon  was  merely 
"a  .38  on  a  .45  frame."  The  telegram  in  some  way  became 
public,  and  puzzled  outsiders.  By  the  way,  both  the  men 
of  my  regiment  and  the  friends  I  had  made  in  the  old  days  in 
the  VVest  were  themselves  a  little  puzzled  at  the  interest 
shown  in  my  making  my  speech  after  being  shot.  This  was 
what  they  expected,  v^hat  they  accepted  as  the  right  thing 
for  a  man  to  do  under  the  circumstances,  a  thing  the  non- 
performance of  which  would  have  been  discreditable  rather 
than  the  performance  being  creditable.  They  would  not 
have  expected  a  man  to  leave  a  battle,  for  instance,  because 
of  being  wounded  in  such  fashion;  and  they  saw  no  reason 
why  he  should  abandon  a  less  Important  and  less  risky 
duty. 

One  of  the  best  soldiers  of  my  regiment  was  a  huge 
man  whom  1  made  marshal  of  a  Rocky  Mountain  State. 
He  had  spent  his  hot  and  lusty  youth  on  the  frontier  during 


IN  COWBOY   LAND 


141 


its  viking  age,  and  at  that  time  had  r         illy  taken  part  in 
incidents  which  seemed  queer  to  mc  customed  to  die 

decentlv  of  zymotic  diseases."  I  told  him  that  an  eflFort 
would  doubtless  be  made  to  prevent  his  confirmation  by  the 
Senate,  and  therefore  that  I  wanted  to  know  all  the  facts  in 
his  case.  Had  he  played  faro  .'  He  had ;  but  it  was  when 
everybody  played  faro,  and  he  had  never  played  a  brace 
game.  Had  he  killed  anybody  .'  Yes,  but  it  was  in  Dodge 
City  on  occasions  when  he  was  deputy  marshal  or  town  mar- 
shal, at  a  time  when  Dodge  City,  now  the  most  peaceful  of 
communities,  was  the  toughest  town  on  the  continent,  and 
crowded  with  man-killing  outlaws  and  road  agents;  and  he 
produced  telegrams  from  judges  of  high  character  testifying 
to  the  need  of  the  actions  he  had  taken.  Finally  I  said  : 
"Now,  Ben,  how  did  you  lose  that  half  of  your  ear  .-"'  To 
which,  looking  rather  shy,  he  responded  :  "Well,  Colonel,  it 
was  bit  off."  "How  did  it  happen,  Ben.'"  "Well,  you 
see,  I  was  sent  to  arrest  a  gentleman,  and  him  and  me  mixed 
it  up,  and  he  bit  oflF  my  ear."  "What  did  you  do  to  the 
gentleman,  Ben  .'"  And  Ben,  looking  more  coy  than  ever, 
responded  :  "Well,  Colonel,  we  broke  about  even  !"  I  fore- 
bore  to  inquire  what  variety  of  mayhem  he  had  committed 
on  the  "gentleman."  After  considerable  struggle  I  got 
him  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  and  he  made  one  of  the  best 
marshals  in  the  entire  service,  exactly  as  he  had  already  made 
one  of  the  best  soldiers  in  the  regiment ;  and  I  never  wish 
to  see  a  better  citizen,  nor  a  man  in  whom  I  would  more 
implicitly  trust  in  every  way. 

When,  in  1900,  I  was  nominated  for  \'icc-Prcsident,  I  was 
sent  by  the  National  Committee  on  a  trip  into  the  States  of 
the  high  plains  and  the  Rocky  Mountains.  These  had  all 
gone  overwhelmingly  for  Mr.  Bryan  on  the  free-silver  issue 
four  years  previously,  and  it  was  thought  that  I,  because  of 
my  knowledge  of  and  acquaintanceship  with  the  people, 
might  accomplish  something  towards  bringing  them  back 
into  line.  It  was  an  interesting  trip,  and  the  monotony 
usually  attendant  upon  such  a  campaign  of  political  speak- 
ing was  diversified  in  vivid  fashion  by  occasional  hostile 
audiences.     One  or   two  of   the   meetings   ended   in   riots. 


142    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

One  meeting  was  finally  broken  up  by  a  mob;  everybody 
fought  so  that  the  speaking  had  to  stop.  Soon  after  this 
we  reached  another  town  where  we  were  told  there  might  be 
trouble.  Here  the  local  committee  included  an  old  and 
valued  friend,  a  "two-gun"  man  of  repute,  who  was  not  in 
the  least  quarrelsome,  but  who  always  kept  his  word.  We 
marched  round  to  the  local  opera-house,  which  was  packed 
with  a  mass  of  men,  many  of  them  rather  rough-looking. 
My  friend  the  two-gun  man  sat  immediately  behind  me,  a 
gun  on  each  hip,  his  arms  folded,  looking  at  the  audience; 
fixing  his  gaze  with  instant  intentness  on  any  section  of  the 
house  from  which  there  came  so  much  as  a  whisper.  The 
audience  listened  to  me  with  rapt  attention.  At  the  end, 
with  a  pride  in  my  rhetorical  powers  which  proceeded  from  a 
misunderstanding  of  the  situation,  I  remarked  to  the  chair- 
man :  "  I  held  that  audience  well ;  there  wasn't  an  inter- 
ruption." To  which  the  chairman  replied  :  "Interruption  ? 
Well,  I  guess  not !  Seth  had  sent  round  word  that  if  any 
son  of  a  gun  peeped  he'd  kill  him  !" 

There  was  one  bit  of  frontier  philosophy  which  I  should 
like  to  see  imitated  in  more  advanced  communities.  Cer- 
tain crimes  of  revolting  baseness  and  cruelty  were  never  for- 
given. But  in  the  case  of  ordinary  offenses,  the  man  who 
had  served  his  term  and  who  then  tried  to  make  good  was 
given  a  fair  chance ;  and  of  course  this  was  equally  true  of 
the  women.  Every  one  who  has  studied  the  subject  at  all 
is  only  too  well  aware  that  the  world  offsets  the  readiness  with 
which  it  condones  a  crime  for  which  a  man  escapes  punish- 
ment, by  its  unforgiving  relentlessness  to  the  often  far  less 
guilty  man  who  is  punished,  and  who  therefore  has  made  his 
atonement.  On  the  frontier,  if  the  man  honestly  tried  to 
behave  himself  there  was  generally  a  disposition  to  give  him 
fair  play  and  a  decent  show.  Several  of  the  men  I  knew 
and  whom  I  particularly  liked  came  in  this  class.  There 
was  one  such  man  in  my  regiment,  a  man  who  had  served 
a  term  for  robbery  under  arms,  and  who  had  atoned  for  it 
by  many  years  of  fine  performance  of  duty.  I  put  him  in  a 
high  official  position,  and  no  man  under  me  rendered  better 
service  to  the  State,  nor  was  there  any  man  whom,  as  soldier. 


IN  COWBOY  LAND 


H3 


as  civil  officer,  as  citizen,  and  as  friend,  I  valued  and  re- 
spected —  and  now  value  and  respect  —  more. 

Now  I  suppose  some  good  people  will  gather  from  this 
that  I  favor  men  who  commit  crimes,  I  certainly  do  not 
favor  them.  I  have  not  a  particle  of  sympathy  with  the 
sentimentality  —  as  I  deem  it,  the  mawkishness  —  which 
overflows  with  foolish  pity  for  the  criminal  and  cares  not  at 
all  for  the  victim  of  the  criminal.  I  am  glad  to  see  wrong- 
doers punished.  The  punishment  is  an  absolute  necessity 
from  the  standpoint  of  society;  and  I  put  the  reformation 
of  the  criminal  second  to  the  welfare  of  society.  But  I  do 
desire  to  see  the  man  or  woman  who  has  paid  the  penalty 
and  who  wishes  to  reform  given  a  helping  hand  —  surely 
every  one  of  us  who  knows  his  own  heart  must  know  that  he 
too  may  stumble,  and  should  be  anxious  to  help  his  brother 
or  sister  who  has  stumbled.  When  the  criminal  has  been 
punished,  if  he  then  shows  a  sincere  desire  to  lead  a  decent 
and  uprigh  ife,  he  should  be  given  the  chance,  he  should 
be  helped  and  not  hindered  ;  and  if  he  makes  good,  he  should 
receive  that  respect  froi,,  others  which  so  often  aids  in  creat- 
ing self-respect  —  the  most  invaluable  of  all  possessions. 


i 
» 


CHAPTER  V 


APPLIED    IDEALISM 


IN   the  spring  of   1889    I  was  appointed    by  President 
Harrison    Civil    Service    Commissioner.     For    nearly 
five  years  I  had  not  been  very  active  in  political  life ; 
although   I    had  done  some  routine  work   in    the  or- 
ganization and  had  made  campaign  speeches,  and  in  1886 
had  run  for  Mayor  of  New  York  against  Abram  S,  Hewitt, 

Democrat,  and  Henry  George,  In- 
dependent, and  had  been  defeated. 
I  served  six  years  as  Civil  Serv- 
ice Commissioner  —  four  years 
under  President  Harrison  and  then 
two  years  under  President  Cleve- 
land. I  was  treated  by  both 
Presidents  with  the  utmost  con- 
sideration. Among  my  fellow- 
Commissioners  there  was  at  one 
time  ex-Governor  Hugh  Thompson, 
of  South  Carolina,  and  at  another 
time  John  R.  Proctor,  of  Kentucky. 
They  were  Democrats  and  ex-Con- 
federate soldiers.  I  became  deeply 
attached  to  both,  and  we  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder  in  every  con- 
test in  which  the  Commission  was 
forced  to  take  part. 

Civil  Service  Reform  had  two 
sides  There  was,  first,  the  eflFort  to  secure  a  more  efficient 
admiiiistralion  of  the  public  service,  and,  second,  the  even 
more  important  effort  to  withdraw  the  administrative 
offices   of    the    Government    from    the    domain    of    spoils 

144 


Theodore  Roosevelt. 
Civil  Service  Commissioner. 


APPLIED  IDEALISM 


HS 


politics,  and   thereby  cut   out  of  American   political  life  a 
truittul  source  of  corruption  and  degradation.     The  spoils 
theory  of  pohtics    is   that  public  office   is   so   much   plun- 
der   which    the    victorious    political    party    is    entitled    to 
appropriate  to  the  use  of  its  adherents.     Under  this  system 
the   work   of   the   Government   was   often    done    well  even 
in    those   days,    when  Civil    Service  Reform    was    only    an 
experiment,  because  the  man   running  an  office  if  himself 
an    able    and    far-sighted   man,   knew  that    inefficiency  in 
administration  would  be  visited  on   his  head   in   the  long 
run,  and  therefore  insisted  upon  most  of  his  subordinates 
doing  goot  work ;   and,  moreover,  the  men  appointed  under 
the  spoils  s  stem  were  necessarily  men  of  a  certain  initiative 
and  power,  because  those  who  lacked  these  qualities  were 
not  able  to   ihoulder  themselves  to  the  front.     Yet  there 
were  many  flagrant  instances  of  inefficiency,  where  a  power- 
ful chief  quartered  friend,  adherent,  or  kinsman  upon  the 
Government.     Moreover,  the  necessarily  haphazard  nature 
of  the  employment,  the  need  of  obtaining  and  holding  the 
office  by  service  wholly  unconnected  with  official  duty    in- 
evitably tended  to  lower  the  standard  of  public  morality 
alike  among  the  office-holders  and   among  the  politicians 
who  rendered  party  service  with  the  hope  of  reward  in  office 
Indeed,  the  doctrine  that  "To  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  " 
the  cynical  battle-cry  of  the  spoils   politician  in  America 
tor  the  sixty  years  preceding  my  own  entrance  into  public 
lite,  IS  so  nakedly  vicious  that  few  right-thinking  men  of 
trained  mind  defend  it.     To  appoint,  promote,  reduce,  and 
expel  trom  the  public  service,  letter-carriers,  stenographers 
women  typewriters,  clerks,  because  of  the  politics  of  them- 
selves or  their  friends,  without  regard  to  their  own  service 
is,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  people  at  large,  as  foolish  and 
degrading  as  it  is  wicked. 

Such  being  the  case,  it  would  seem  at  first  sight  extraor- 
dinary that  it  should  be  so  difficult  to  uproot  the  system 
Unfortunately  it  was  permitted  to  become  habitual  and 
traditional  in  American  life,  so  that  the  conception  of  public 
ottice  as  something  to  be  used  primarily  for  the  good  of  the 
dominant  political  party  became  ingrained  in  the  mind  of 


146    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  average  American,  and  he  grew  so  accustomed  to  the 
whole  process  that  it  seemed  part  of  the  order  of  nature. 
Not  merely  the  politicians  but  the  bulk  of  the  people  ac- 
cepted this  in  a  matter-of-course  way  as  the  only  proper  at- 
titude. There  were  plenty  of  communities  where  the  citi- 
zens themselves  did  not  think  it  natural,  or  indeed  proper, 
,that  the  Post-Office  .lould  be  held  by  a  man  belonging  to 
the  defeated  party.  Moreover,  unless  both  sides  were  for- 
bidden to  use  the  oflFiccs  for  purposes  of  political  reward,  the 
side  that  did  use  them  possessed  such  an  advantage  over 
the  other  that  in  the  long  run  it  was  out  of  the  question  for 
the  other  not  to  follow  the  bad  example  that  had  been  set. 
Each  party  profited  by  the  office?  when  in  power,  and  when 
in  opposition  each  party  insincerely  denounced  its  opponents 
for  doing  exactly  what  it  itself  had  done  and  intended  again 
to  do. 

It  was  necessary,  in  order  to  remedy  the  evil,  both  grad- 
ually to  change  the  average  citizen's  mental  attitude  toward 
the  question,  and  also  to  secure  proper  laws  and  proper  ad- 
ministration of  the  laws.  The  work  is  far  from  finished 
even  yet.  There  are  still  masses  of  office-holders  who  can 
be  used  by  an  unscrupulous  Administration  to  debauch 
political  conventions  and  fraudulently  overcome  public 
sentiment,  especially  in  the  "rotten  borough"  districts  — 
those  where  the  party  is  not  strong,  and  where  the  office- 
holders in  consequence  have  a  disproportionate  influence. 
This  was  done  by  the  Republican  Administration  in  191 2, 
to  the  ruin  of  the  Republican  party.  Moreover,  there  are 
numbers  of  States  and  municipalities  where  very  little  has 
as  yet  been  done  to  do  away  with  the  spoils  system.  But 
in  the  National  Government  scores  of  thousands  of  offices 
have  been  put  und?r  the  merit  system,  chiefly  through  the 
action  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Commission. 

The  use  of  Government  offices  as  patronage  is  a  handicap 
difficult  to  overestimate  from  the  standpoint  of  those  who 
strive  to  get  good  government.  Any  eflFort  for  reform  of  any 
sort,  National,  State,  or  municipal,  results  in  the  reformers 
immediately  finding  themselves  face  to  face  with  an  or- 
ganized band  of  drilled  mercenaries  who  are  paid  out  of  the 


APPLIED   IDEALISM  ,47 

public  chest  to  train  themselves  with  such  skill  that  ordinary 
good  citizens  when  they  meet  them  at  the  polls  are  in  much 
the  position  of  militia  matched  against  regular  troops.  Yet 
these  citizens  themselves  support  and  pay  their  opponents 
I J  in  such  a  way  that  they  are  drilled  to  overthrow  the  very 

men  who  support  them.  Civil  Service  Reform  is  designed 
primarily  to  give  the  average  American  citizen  a  fair  chance 
in  politics,  to  give  to  this  citizen  the  same  weight  in  politics 
that  the  "ward  heeler"  has. 

Patronage  does  not  really  help  a  party.  It  helps  the 
bosses  to  get  control  of  the  machinery  of  the  party  —  as  in 
191 2  was  true  of  the  Republican  party  —  but  it  does  not 
help  the  party.  On  the  average,  the  most  sweeping  party 
victories  111  our  history  have  been  won  when  the  patronage 
was  against  the  victors.  All  that  the  patronage  dots  is  to 
help  the  worst  element  in  the  party  retain  control  of  the 
party  organization.  Two  of  the. evil  elements  in  our  Gov- 
ernment against  which  good  citizens  have  to  contend  are, 
I,  the  lack  of  continuous  activity  on  the  part  of  these  good 
citizens  themselves,  and,  2,  the  ever-present  activity  of 
{"?se  who  have  only  an  evil  self-interest  in  political  life. 
It  is  difficult  to  interest  the  average  citizen  in  any  particular 
movement  to  the  degree  of  getting  him  to  take  an  efficient 
part  in  it.  He  wishes  the  movement  well,  but  he  will  not, 
or  often  cannot,  take  the  time  and  the  trouble  to  serve  it 
efficiently ;  and  this  whether  he  happens  to  be  a  mechanic 
or  a  banker,  a  telegraph  operator  or  a  storekeeper.  He 
has  his  own  interests,  his  own  business,  and  it  is  difficult 
for  him  to  spare  the  time  to  go  around  to  the  primaries,  to 
see  to  the  organization,  to  see  to  getting  out  the  vote  —  in 
short,  to  attend  to  all  the  thousand  details  of  political 
management. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  spoils  system  breeds  a  class  of 
men  whose  financial  interest  it  is  to  take  this  necessary  time 
and  trouble.  They  arc  paid  for  so  doing,  and  they  are  paid 
out  of  the  public  chest.  Under  the  spoils  system  a  man  is 
appointed  to  an  ordinary  clerical  or  ministerial  p6sition  in 
the  municipal.  Federal,  or  State  government,  not  primarily 
because  he  is  expected  to  be  a  good  servant,  but  because  he 


148    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

has  rendered  help  to  some  big  boss  or  to  the  henchman  of 
some  big  boss.  His  stay  in  office  depends  not  upon  how  he 
performs  service,  but  upon  how  he  retains  his  influence  in 
the  party.  This  necessarily  means  that  his  attention  to  the 
interests  of  the  public  at  large,  even  though  real,  is  secondary 
to  his  devotion  to  his  organization,  or  to  the  interest  of  the 
ward  leader  who  put  him  in  his  place.  So  he  and  his  fellows 
attend  to  politics,  not  once  a  year,  not  two  or  three  times  a 
year,  like  the  average  citizen,  but  every  day  in  the  year. 
It  is  the  one  thing  that  they  talk  of,  for  it  is  their  bread  and 
butter.  They  plan  about  it  and  they  scheme  about  it. 
They  do  it  because  it  is  their  business.  I  do  not  blame  them 
in  the  least.  I  blame  us,  the  people,  for  we  ought  to  make  it 
clear  as  a  bell  that  the  business  of  serving  the  people  in  one 
of  the  ordinary  ministerial  Government  positions,  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  deciding  the  policy  of  the  Government, 
should  have  no  necessary  connection  with  the  management 
of  primaries,  of  caucuses,  and  of  nominating  conventions. 
As  a  result  of  our  wrong  thinking  and  supineness,  we  Amer- 
ican citizens  tend  to  breed  a  mass  of  men  whose  interests  in 
governmental  matters  are  often  adverse  to  ours,  who  are 
thoroughly  drilled,  thoroughly  organized,  who  make  their 
livelihood  out  of  politics,  and  who  frequently  make  their 
livelihood  out  of  bad  politics.  They  know  every  little  twist 
and  turn,  no  matter  how  intricate,  in  the  politics  of  their 
several  wards,  and  when  election  day  comes  the  ordinary 
citizen  who  has  merely  the  interest  that  all  good  men,  all 
decent  citizens,  should  have  in  political  life,  finds  himself 
as  helpless  before  these  men  as  if  he  were  a  solitary  volunteer 
in  the  presence  of  a  band  of  drilled  mercenaries  on  a  field  of 
battle.  There  are  a  couple  of  hundred  thousand  Federal 
offices,  not  to  speak  of  State  and  municipal  offices.  The 
men  who  fill  these  offices,  and  the  men  who  wish  to  fill  them, 
within  and  without  the  dominant  party  for  the  time  being, 
make  a  regular  army,  whose  interest  it  is  that  the  system  of 
bread-and-butter  politics  shall  continue.  Against  their 
concrete  interest  we  have  merely  the  generally  unorganized 
sentiment  of  the  community  in  favor  of  putting  things  on  a 
decent  basis.     The  large  number  of  men  who  believe  vaguely 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


149 


in  good  are  pitted  against  the  smaller  but  still  larger  number 
of  men  whose  interest  it  often  becomes  to  act  very  concretely 
and  actively  for  evil ;  and  it  is  small  wonder  that  the  struggle 
is  doubtful. 

During  my  six  years'  servic-  as  Commissioner  the  field 
of  the  merit  system  was  extended  at  the  expense  of  the  spoils 
system  so  as  to  include  several  times  the  number  of  offices 
that  had  originally  been  included.  Generally  this  was  done 
by  the  introduction  of  competitive  entrance  examinations ; 
sometimes,  as  in  the  Navy-Yards,  by  a  system  of  registra- 
tion.    This  of  itself  was  good  work. 

Even  better  work  was  making  the  law  efficient  and  gen- 
uine where  it  applied.  As  was  inevitable  in  the  introduction 
of  such  a  system,  there  was  at  first  only  partial  success  in  its 
application.  For  instance,  it  applied  to  the  ordinary  em- 
ployees in  the  big  custom-houses  and  post-offices,  but  not 
to  the  heads  of  these  offices.  A  number  of  the  heads  of  the 
offices  were  slippery  politicians  of  a  low  moral  grade,  them- 
selves appointed  under  the  spoils  system,  and  anxious, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  break  down  the  merit  system  and 
to  pay  their  own  political  debts  by  appointing  their  hench- 
men and  supporters  to  the  positions  under  them.  Occa- 
sionally these  men  acted  with  open  and  naked  brutality. 
Ordinarily  they  sought  by  cunning  to  evade  the  law.  The 
Civil  Service  Reformers,  on  the  other  hand,  were  in  most 
cases  not  much  used  to  practical  politics,  and  were  often 
well-nigh  helpless  when  pitted  against  veteran  professional 
politicians.  In  consequence  I  found  at  the  beginning  of  my 
experiences  that  there  were  many  offices  in  which  the  exe- 
cution of  the  law  was  a  sham.  This  was  very  damaging, 
because  it  encouraged  the  politicians  to  assault  the  law  every- 
where, and,  on  the  other  hand,  made  good  people  feel  that 
the  law  was  not  worth  while  defending. 

The  first  effort  of  myself  and  my  colleagues  was  to  secure 
the  genuine  enforcement  of  the  law.  In  this  we  succeeded 
after  a  number  of  lively  fights.  But  of  course  in  these  fights 
we  were  obliged  to  strike  a  large  number  of  influential  poli- 
ticians, some  of  them  in  Congress,  some  of  them  the  sup- 
porters and  backers  of  men  who  were  in  Congress.     Accord- 


di 


ISO    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


ingly  we  soon  found  ourselves  engaged  in  a  series  of  contests 
with  prominent  Senators  and  Congressmen.  There  were  a 
number  of  Senators  and  Congressmen  —  men  like  Congress- 
man (afterwards  Senator)  H.  C.  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts; 
Senator  Cushman  K.  Davis,  of  Minnesota  ;  Senator  Orville 
H.  Piatt,  of  Connecticut;  Senator  Cockrell,  of  Missouri; 
Congressman  (afterwards  President)  McKinley,  of  Ohio, 
and  Congressman  Dargan,  of  South  Carolina  —  who  ab- 
horred the  business  of  the  spoilsman,  who  efficiently  and 
resolutely  championed  the  reform  at  every  turn,  and  with- 
out whom  the  whole  reform  would  certainly  have  failed. 
But  there  were  plenty  of  other  Senators  and  Congressmen 
who  hated  the  whole  reform  and  everything  concerned  with 
it  and  everybody  who  championed  it;  and  sometimes,  to 
use  a  legal  phrase,  their  hatred  was  for  cause,  and  sometimes 
it  was  peremptory  —  that  is,  sometimes  the  Commission 
interfered  with  their  most  efficient,  and  incidentally  most 
corrupt  and  unscrupulous,  supporters,  and  at  other  times, 
where  there  was  no  such  interference,  a  man  nevertheless 
had  an  innate  dislike  of  anything  that  tended  to  decency  in 
government.  These  men  were  always  waging  war  against 
us,  and  they  usually  had  the  more  or  less  open  support  of  a 
certain  number  of  Government  officials,  from  Cabinet  officers 
do^yn.  The  Senators  and  Congressmen  in  question  opposed 
us  in  many  different  ways.  Sometimes,  for  instance,  they 
had  committees  appointed  to  investigate  us  —  during  my 
public  career  without  and  within  office  I  grew  accustomed  to 
accept  appearances  before  investigating  conmittees  as  part 
of  the  natural  order  of  things.  Sometimes  they  tried  to  cut 
off  the  appropriation  for  the  Commission. 

Occasionally  we  would  bring  to  terms  these  Senators  or 
Congressmen  who  fought  the  Commission  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  not  holding  examinations  in  their  districts. 
This  always  brought  frantic  appeals  from  their  constituents, 
and  we  would  explain  that  unfortunately  the  appropriations 
had  been  cut,  so  that  we  could  not  hold  examinations  in 
every  district,  and  that  obviously  we  could  not  neglect  the 
districts  oi  those  Congressmen  who  believed  in  the  reform 
and  therefore  in  the  examinations.    The  constituents  then 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


iSi 


turned  their  attention  to  the  Congressman,  and  the  result 
was  that  in  the  long  run  we  obtained  sufficient  money  to 
enable  us  to  do  our  work.  On  the  whole,  the  most  prom- 
inent leaders  favored  us.  Any  man  who  is  the  head  of  a 
big  department,  if  he  has  any  fitness  at  all,  wishes  to  see  that 
department  run  well ;  and  a  very  little  practical  experience 
shows  him  that  it  cannot  be  run  well  if  he  must  make  his 
appointments  to  please  spoilsmongering  politicians.  As  with 
almost  every  reform  that  I  have  ever  undertaken,  most  of 
the  opposition  took  the  guise  of  shrewd  slander.  Our  op- 
ponents relied  chiefly  on  downright  misrepresentation  of 
what  it  was  that  we  were  trying  to  accomplish,  and  of  our 
methods,  acts,  and  personalities.  I  had  more  than  one 
lively  encounter  with  the  authors  and  sponsors  of  these  mis- 
representations, which  at  the  time  were  full  of  interest  to 
me.  But  it  would  be  a  dreary  thing  now  to  go  over  the  record 
of  exploded  mendacity,  or  to  expose  the  meanness  and  malice 
shown  by  some  men  of  high  official  position.  A  favorite 
argument  was  to  call  the  reform  Chinese,  because  the 
Chinese  had  constructed  an  inefficient  governmental  system 
based  in  part  on  the  theory  of  written  competitive  examina- 
tions. The  argument  was  simple.  There  had  been  written 
examinations  in  China ;  it  was  proposed  to  establish  written 
examinations  in  the  United  States ;  therefore  the  proposed 
system  was  Chinese.  The  argument  might  have  been  ap- 
plied still  further.  For  instance,  the  Chinese  had  used 
gunpowder  for  centuries ;  gunpowder  is  used  in  Springfield 
rifles ;  therefore  Springfield  rifles  were  Chinese.  One  argu- 
ment is  quite  as  logical  as  the  other.  It  was  impossible  to 
answer  every  falsehood  about  the  system.  But  it  was  possible 
to  answer  certain  falsehoods,  especially  when  uttered  by  some 
Senator  or  Congressman  of  note.  Usually  these  false 
statements  took  the  form  of  assertions  that  we  had  asked 
preposterous  questions  of  applicants.  At  times  they  also 
included  the  assertion  that  we  credited  people  to  districts 
where  they  did  not  live ;  this  simply  meaning  that  these 
persons  were  not  known  to  the  active  ward  politicians  of 
those  districts. 
One  opponent  with  whom  we  had  a  rather  lively  tilt  was 


152    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBKX^RAPHY 

a  Republican  Congressman  from  Ohio,  Mr.  (Irosvcnor,  one 
of  the  floor  leaders.  Mr.  (Jrosvcnor  made  his  attack  in 
the  House,  and  enumerated  our  sins  in  picturesque  rather 
than  accurate  fashion.  There  was  a  Congressional  com- 
mittee investigating  us  at  the  lime,  and  on  my  next  appear- 
ance before  them  I  asked  that  Mr.  (Jrosvenor  be  requested 
to  meet  me  before  the  committee.  Mr.  Grosvenor  did  not 
take  up  thcchallcnge  for  several  weeks, until  itwas  ani.ounced 
that  I  was  leaving  for  my  ranch  in  Dakota;  whereupon, 
deeming  it  safe,  he  wrote  me  a  letter  expressing  his  ardent 
wish  that  I  should  appear  before  the  committee  to  meet 
him.  I  promptly  canceled  my  ticket,  waited,  and  met  him. 
He  proved  to  be  a  person  of  happily  treacherous  memory, 
so  that  the  simple  expedient  of  arranging  his  statements  in 
pairs  was  sufficient  to  reduce  him  to  confusion.  For  in- 
stance, he  had  been  trapped  into  making  the  unwary  remark, 
*'  I  do  not  want  to  repeal  the  Civil  Service  Law,  and  I  never 
said  so."  I  produced  the  following  extract  from  one  of  his 
speeches  :  "I  will  vote  not  only  to  strike  out  this  provision, 
but  I  will  vote  to  repeal  the  whole  law."  To  this  he  merely 
replied  that  there  was  "no  inconsistency  between  those 
two  statements."  He  asserted  that  "Rufus  P.  Putnam, 
fraudulently  credited  to  Washington  County,  Ohio,  never 
lived  in  Washington  County,  Ohio,  or  in  my  Congressional 
district,  or  in  Ohio  as  far  as  I  know."  We  produced  a  letter 
which,  thanks  to  a  beneficent  Providence,  he  had  himself 
written  about  Mr.  Rufus  P.  Putnam,  in  whicii  he  said : 
*'Mr.  Rufus  P.  Putnam  is  a  legal  resident  of  my  district 
and  has  relatives  living  there  now."  He  explained,  first, 
that  he  had  not  written  the  letter;  second,  that  he  had  for- 
gotten he  had  written  the  letter;  and,  third,  that  he  was 
grossly  deceived  when  he  wrote  it.  He  said  :  "  I  have  not 
been  informed  of  one  applicant  who  has  found  a  place  in  the 
classified  service  from  my  district."  We  confronted  him 
with  the  names  of  eight.  He  looked  them  over  and  said, 
"  \'es,  the  eight  men  are  living  in  my  district  as  now  con- 
stituted," but  added  that  his  district  had  been  gerryman- 
dered so  that  he  could  no  longer  tell  who  did  and  who  didn't 
live  in  it.     When  I  started  further  to  question  him,  he  ac- 


^  ii  ■ 


APPLIKD   IDEALISM 


IS3 


cused  me  of  a  lack  of  humor  in  not  appreciating  that  his 
statements  were  made  "in  a  jesting  way,"  and  then  an- 
nounced that  "a  Congressman  malving  a  speech  on  the  floor 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  was  perhaps  in  a  little 
diflFerent  position  from  a  witness  on  the  witness  stand"  —  a 
frank  admission  that  he  did  not  consider  exactitude  of 
statement  necessary  when  he  was  speaking  as  a  Congress- 
man. P'inally  hi  rose  with  great  dignity  and  said  that  it 
was  his  "constitutional  right"  not  to  he  questioned  else- 
where as  to  what  he  said  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Rcp>- 
resentatives ;  and  accordingly  he  left  the  delighted  com- 
mittee to  pursue  its  investigations  without  further  aid  from 
him. 

A  more  important  opponent  was  the  then  Democratic 
leader  of  the  Senate,  Mr.  Gorman.  In  a  speech  attacking 
the  Commission  Mr.  Gorman  described  with  moving  pathos 
how  a  friend  of  his,  "a  bright  young  man  from  Baltimore," 
a  Sunday-school  scholar,  well  recommended  by  his  pastor, 
wished  to  be  a  letter-carrier;  and  how  he  went  before  us 
to  be  examined.  The  first  question  we  asked  him,  said  .Mr. 
Gorman,  was  the  shortest  route  from  Baltimore  to  China, 
to  which  the  "bright  young  man"  responded  that  he  didn't 
want  to  go  to  China,  and  had  never  studied  up  that  route. 
Thereupon,  said  Mr.  Gorman,  we  asked  him  all  about  the 
steamship  lines  from  the  United  States  to  Europe,  then 
branched  him  oflF  into  geology,  tried  him  in  chemistry,  and 
finally  turned  him  down. 

Apparently  Mr.  Gorman  did  not  know  that  we  kept  full 
records  of  our  examinations.  I  at  once  wrote  to  him  stating 
that  I  had  carefully  looked  through  all  our  examination 
papers  and  had  not  been  able  to  find  one  question  e\  n  re- 
motely resembling  any  of  these  questions  which  he  alleged 
had  been  asked,  and  that  I  would  be  greatly  obliged  if  he 
would  give  me  the  name  of  the  "bright  younu  man"  who 
had  deceived  him. 

However,  that  "bright  young  man"  remained  perma- 
nently without  a  name.  I  also  asked  Mr.  ('orman,  if  he  did 
not  wish  to  give  us  the  name  of  his  informant,  to  give  us  the 
date  of  the  examination  in  which  he  was  supposed  to  have 


154    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

taken  part;  and  I  offtred,  if  he  would  send  down  a  repre- 
sentative to  lcK)k  through  our  files,  to  give  him  all  the  aid 
we  could  in  his  effort  to  discover  any  such  questions.  But 
Mr.  Gorman,  not  hitherto  known  as  a  sensitive  soul,  ex- 
pressed himself  as  so  shocked  at  the  thought  that  the  ve- 
racity of  the  "bright  young  man"  should  be  doubted  that 
he  could  not  bring  himself  to  answer  my  letter.  So  I  made 
a  public  statement  to  the  effect  that  no  such  questions  had 
ever  been  asked.  Mr.  Gorman  brooded  over  this ;  and 
during  the  next  session  of  Congress  he  rose  and  complained 
that  he  had  received  a  very  "impudent"  letter  from  me 
(my  letter  was  a  respectful  note  calling  attention  to  the  fact 
that,  if  he  wished,  he  could  by  personal  examination  satisfy 
himself  that  his  statements  had  no  foundation  in  fact).  He 
further  stated  that  he  had  been  "cruelly"  called  to  account 
by  me  because  he  had  been  endeavoring  to  right  a  "great 
wrong"  that  the  Civil  Service  Commission  had  committed; 
but  he  never,  then  or  afterwards,  furnished  any  clue  to  the 
identity  of  that  child  of  his  fondest  fancy,  the  bright 
young  man  without  a  name.' 

The  incident  is  of  note  chiefly  as  shedding  light  on  the 
mental  make-up  of  the  man  who  at  the  time  was  one  of  the 
two  or  three  most  influential  leaders  of  the  Democratic 
party.  Mr.  Gorman  h^d  been  Mr.  Cleveland's  party 
manager  in  the  Presidential  campaign,  and  was  the  Demo- 
cratic leader  in  Congress.  It  seemed  extraordinary  that 
he  should  be  so  reckless  as  to  make  statements  with  no 
foundation  in  fact,  which  he  might  have  known  that  I  would 
not  permit  to  pass  unchallenged.  Then,  as  now,  the  or- 
dinary newspaper,  in  New  York  and  elsewhere,  was  quite 
as  reckless  in  its  misstatements  of  fact  about  public  men  and 
measures ;  but  for  a  man  in  Mr.  Gorman's  position  of  re- 
sponsible leadership  such  action  seemed  hardly  worth  while. 
However,  it  is  at  least  to  be  said  for  Mr.  Gorman  that  he 
was  not  trying  by  falsehood  to  take  away  any  man's  char- 
acter.    It  would  be  well  for  writers  and  speakers  to  bear  in 

'  This  is  a  condensation  of  a  speech  I  at  the  time  made  to  the  St.  Louis  Civil 
Service  Reform  Association.  Senator  (lorman  was  then  the  Senate  leader  of  the 
party  that  had  just  been  victorious  in  the  Congressional  elections. 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


«5S 


mind  the  remark  of  Pudd'nhcad  Wilson  to  the  effect  that 
while  there  are  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  kinds  of  false- 
hood, the  only  kind  specifically  condemned  in  Scripture, 
just  as  murder,  theft,  and  adultery  are  condemned,  is  bear- 
mg  false  witness  against  one's  neighbor. 

One  of  the  worst  features  of  the  old  spoils  system  was  the 
ruthless  cruelty  and  brutality  it  so  often  bred  in  the  treat- 
ment of  faithful  pubhV  -rvants  without  political  influence. 
Life  is  hard  enough  '  .r  .1  enough  at  best,  and  this  is  as 
true  of  public  servl  .  f  rnv  .  ..  -jce.  Under  no  system 
will  It  be  possible  ,..  .!<<  avv.iv  u  '  II  favoritism  and  bru- 
tality and  mean:  i  .i  !-'ai:\.  P,  at  least  we  can  try  to 
minimize  the  .•';.,;-.,,,  ,,f  ,1.^,^  ^  lities.  I  once  came 
across  a  case  i,i  \,  ,,hi  .U'  v'tij.-Ii  < 
sympathy.  I  ,.  !er  :».i  A.  fii  •.  t.ai: 
with  which  I    v.v    x    tuc.  J  u  Liuy  i 


1"     ",'•  i. I'l  ,j 

■■y  keenly  excited  my 
>n  prior  to  the  one 
-  -_,  .  ^d  been  ousted  from  a 
(jovernment  po.iior,  Sj,  ■  .  an  e  v  me  to  see  if  she  could 
be  reinstated.  (This  was  uoi  >.,ible,  but  by  active  work 
I  did  get  her  put  b.  c'.  •:  a  soriev/hat  lower  position,  and 
this  only  by  an  appeal  -i  syn.pathy  of  a  certain  official.) 
She  was  so  pallid  and  so  careworn  that  she  excited  my 
sympathy  and  I  made  inquiries  about  her.  She  was  a  poor 
woman  with  two  children,  a  widow.  She  and  her  two  chil- 
dren were  in  actual  want.  She  could  barely  keep  the  two 
children  decently  clad,  and  she  could  not  give  them  the  food 
growing  children  need.  Three  years  before  she  had  been 
employed  in  a  bureau  in  a  department  of  Washington,  doing 
her  work  faithfully,  at  a  salary  of  about  i58cx3.  It  was 
enough  to  keep  her  and  her  two  children  in  clothing,  food, 
and  shelter.  One  day  the  chief  of  the  bureau  called  her  up 
and  told  her  he  was  very  sorry  that  he  had  to  dismiss  her. 
In  great  distress  she  asked  him  why ;  she  thought  that  she  had 
been  doing  her  work  satisfactorily.  He  an  "ered  her  that  she 
had  been  doing  well,  and  that  he  wished  ■  ry  much  that  he 
could  keep  her,  that  he  would  do  so  if  he  possibly  could, 
but  that  he  could  not;  for  a  certain  Senator,  giving  his 
name,  a  very  influential  member  of  the  Senate,  had  de- 
manded her  place  for  a  friend  of  his  who  had  influence. 
The  woman  told  the  bureau  chief  that  it  meant  turning  her 


IS6    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

out  to  starve.  She  liad  been  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  in 
the  pubhc  service;  she  had  lost  all  touch  with  ht.  friends 
in  her  native  State;    dismissal  meant  absolute  want  for  her 


(  upyriicbt  by  ( 'llnedlnsi . 


Mark  Hasna. 


"A  man  of  ruKgf<l  sinct-rity  i>f  purpose,  of  great  courage  and  loyalty,  and  of  unswerving 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  Nation  and  the  people  as  he  saw  those  interests." 


and  her  children.  On  this  the  chief,  who  was  a  kind  man, 
said  he  would  not  have  her  turned  out,  and  sent  her  back  to 
her  work. 

But  three  weeks  afterwards  he  called  her  up  again  and 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


157 


told  her  he  could  not  say  how  sorry  he  was,  but  the  thing  had 
to  be  done.  The  Senator  had  been  around  in  person  to 
know  why  the  change  had  not  been  made,  and  had  told  the 
chief  that  he  would  be  himself  removed  if  the  place  were  not 
given  him.  The  Senator  was  an  extremely  influential  man. 
His  wants  had  to  be  attended  to,  and  the  woman  had  to  go. 
And  go  she  did,  and  turned  out  she  was,  to  suffer  with  her 
children  and  to  starve  outright,  or  to  live  in  semi-starvation, 
just  as  might  befall.  I  do  not  blame  the  bureau  chief,  who 
hated  to  do  what  he  did,  although  he  lacked  the  courage 
to  refuse ;  I  do  not  even  very  much  blame  the  Senator,  who 
did  not  know  the  hardship  that  he  was  causing,  and  who  had 
been  calloused  by  long  training  in  the  spoils  system;  but 
this  system,  a  system  which  permits  and  encourages  such 
deeds,  is  a  system  of  brutal  iniquity. 

Any  man  accustomed  to  dealing  with  practical  politics 
can  with  difficulty  keep  a  straight  face  when  he  reads  or 
listens  to  some  of  the  arguments  advanced  against  Civil 
Service  Reform.  One  of  these  arguments,  a  favorite  with 
machine  politicians,  takes  the  form  of  an  appeal  to  "party 
loyalty"  in  filling  minor  offices.  Why,  again  and  again 
these  very  same  machine  politicians  take  just  as  good  care 
of  henchmen  of  the  opposite  party  as  of  those  of  their  own 
party.  In  the  underworld  of  politics  the  closest  tics  arc 
sometimes  those  which  knit  together  the  active  professional 
workers  of  opposite  political  parties.  A  friend  of  mine  in 
the  New  York  Legislature  —  the  hero  of  the  alpha  and 
omega  incident  ^  once  remarked  to  me:  "When  you  have 
been  in  public  life  a  little  longer,  Mr.  Rov:tsevclt,'you  will 
understand  that  there  arc  no  politics  in  politics."  In  the 
politics  to  which  he  was  referring  this  remark  could  be  taken 
literally. 

Another  illustration  of  this  truth  was  incidentally  given 
me,  at  about  the  same  time,  by  an  acquaintance,  a  Tam- 
rnany  man  named  Costigan,  a  good  fellow  according  to  his 
lights.  I  had  been  speaking  to  him  of  a  fight  in  one  of  the 
New  York  downtown  districts,  a  Democratic  district  in  which 
the  Republican  party  was  in  a  hopeless  minority,  and,  more- 
over, was  split  into  the  Half-Breed  and  Stalwart  factions. 


m\ 


,58    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

It  had  been  an  interesting  fight  in  more  than  one  way.     For 
instance,   the   Republican   party,   at   the   general   election 
polled  something  like  five  hundred  and  fifty  votes,  and  yet 
at  the  primary  the  two  factions  polled  seven  hundred  and 
twenty-five  all  told.     The  sum  of  the  parts  was  thus  con- 
siderably greater  than  the  whole.     There  had  been  otlier 
little  details  that  made  the  contest  worthy  of  note.     1  he 
hall  in  which  the  primary  was  held  had  been  hired  by  the 
Stalwarts   from   a   conscientious   gentleman.     To   him   the 
Half-Breeds  applied  to  know  whether  they  could  not  hire 
the  hall  away  from  their  opponents,  and  offered  him  a  sub- 
stantial money  advance.     The  conscientious  gentleman  re- 
plied that  his  word  was  as  good  as  his  bond,  that  he  had 
hired  the  hall  to  the  Stalwarts,  and  that  it  must  be  the  i  s. 
But  he  added  that  he  was  willing  to  hire  the  doorway  to  the 
Half-Breeds  if  they  paid  him  the  additional  sum  of  money 
they   had   mentioned.     The  bargain   was   struck,   and   the 
meeting  of  the  hostile  hosts  was  spirited,  when  the  men  who 
had  rented  the  doorway  sought  to  bar  the  path  of  the  men 
who  had  rented  the  hall.     I  was  asking  mv  fnend  Costigan 
about  the  details  of  the  struggle,  as  he  seemed  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  them,  and  he  smiled  good-naturedly  over 
my  surprise  at  there  having  been  more  votes  cast  than  there 
were  members  of  the  party  in  the  whole  district,     baid  1, 
"Mr  Costigan,  you  seem  to  have  a  great  deal  of  knowledge 
about  this;    how  did  it  happen.?"     To  which  he  replied, 
"Come  now,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  you  know  its  the  same  gang 
that  votes  in  all  the  primaries." 

So  much  for  most  of  the  opposition  to  the  reform.  1  here 
was,  however,  some  honest  and  at  least  partially  justifiable 
opposition  both  to  certain  of  the  methods  advocated  by 
Civil  Service  Reformers  and  to  certain  of  the  Civil  Service 
Reformers  themselves.  The  pet  shibboleths  of  the  op- 
ponents of  the  reform  were  that  the  system  we  proposed  to 
introduce  would  give  rise  to  mere  red-tape  bureaucracy, 
and  that  the  reformers  were  pharisees.  Neither  statement 
was  true.     Each  statement  contained  some  truth. 

If  men  are  not  to  be  appointed  by  favoritism,  wise  or  un- 
wise, honest  or  dishonest,  they  must  be  appointed  in  some 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


159 


automatic  way,  which  generally  means  by  competitive  ex- 
amination. The  easiest  kind  of  competitive  examination  is 
an  examination  in  writing.  This  is  entirely  appropriate 
for  certain  classes  of  work,  for  lawyers,  stenographers,  type- 
writers, clerks,  mathematicians,  and  assistants  in  an  as- 
tronomical observatory,  for  instance.  It  is  utterly  inap- 
propriate for  carpenters,  detectives,  and  mounted  cattle 
inspectors  along  the  Rio  Grande  —  to  instance  three  types 
of  employment  as  to  which  I  had  to  do  battle  to  prevent 
well-meaning  bureaucrats  from  insisting  on  written  com- 
petitive entrance  examinations.  It  would  be  quite  possible 
to  hold  a  very  good  competitive  examination  for  mounted 
cattle  inspectors  by  means  of  practical  tests  in  brand  reading 
and  shooting  with  rifle  and  revolver,  in  riding  "mean" 
horses  and  in  roping  and  throwing  steers.  I  did  my  best  to 
have  examinations  of  this  kind  instituted,  but  my  proposal 
was  of  precisely  the  type  which  most  shocks  the  routine 
official  mind,  and  I  was  never  able  to  get  it  put  into  practical 
effect. 

The  important  point,  and  the  point  most  often  forgotten 
by  zealous  Civil  Service  Reformers,  was  to  remember  that 
the  routine  competitive  examination  was  merely  a  means  to 
an  end.  It  did  not  always  produce  ideal  results.  But  it 
was  normally  better  than  a  system  of  appointments  for 
spoils  purposes ;  it  sometimes  worked  out  very  well  indeed  ; 
and  in  most  big  governmental  offices  it  not  only  gave  satis- 
factory results,  but  was  the  only  system  under  which  good 
results  could  be  obtained.  For  instance,  when  I  was  Police 
Commissioner  we  appointed  some  two  thousand  policemen 
at  one  time.  It  was  utterly  impossible  for  the  Commis- 
sioners each  to  examine  personally  the  six  or  eight  thousand 
applicants.  Therefore  they  had  to  be  appointed  either  on 
the  recommendation  of  outsiders  or  else  by  written  com- 
petitive examination.  The  latter  method  —  the  one  we 
adopted  —  was  infinitely  preferable.  We  held  a  rigid  phys- 
ical and  moral  pass  examination,  and  then,  among  those 
who  passed,  we  held  a  written  competitive  examination,  re- 
quiring only  the  knowledge  that  any  good  primary  common 
school  education  would  meet  —  that  is,  a  test  of  ordinary 


l6o    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

intelligence  and  simple  mental  training.  Occasionally  a 
man  who  would  have  been  a  good  officer  failed,  and  occa- 
sionally a  man  who  turned  out  to  be  a  bad  officer  passed ; 
but,  as  a  rule,  the  men  with  intelligence  sufficient  to  enable 
them  to  answer  the  questions  were  of  a  type  very  distinctly 
above  that  of  those  who  failed. 

The  answers  returned  to  some  of  the  questions  gave  an 
illuminating  idea  of  the  intelligence  of  those  answering  them. 
For  instance,  one  of  our  questions  in  a  given  examination 
was  a   request  to  name  five  of  the  New  England   States. 
One    competitor,    obviously    of    foreign    birth,    answered : 
"England,    Ireland,    Scotland,    Whales,    and    Cork."     His 
neighbor,  who  had  probably  looked  over  his  shoulder  but 
who  had  North  of  Ireland  prejudices,  made  the  same  answer 
except  that  he  substituted  Belfast  for  Cork.     A  request  for 
a   statement  as  to  the  life  of  Abraham   Lincoln   elicited, 
among  other  less  startling  pieces  of  information,  the  fact 
that  many  of  the  applicants  thought  that  he  was  a  general 
in  the  Civil  War;   several  thought  that  he  was  President  of 
the  Confederate  States ;    three  thought  he  had  been  assas- 
sinated by  JefTerson  Davis,  one  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  one 
by  Garfield,    several   by  Guiteau,   and  one   by   Ballington 
Booth  —  the  last  representing  a  memory  of  the  fact  that  he 
had  been  shot  by  a  man  named  Booth,  to  whose  surname 
the  writer  added  the  name  with  which  he  was  most  familiar 
in  connection   therewith.     A   request  to  name  five  of  the 
States  that  seceded  in  l86l  received  answers  that  included 
almost  every  State  in  the  Union.     It  happened  to  be  at  the 
time  of  the  silver  agitation  in  the  West,  and   the  Rocky 
Mountain  States  accordingly  figured  in  a  large  perceritage 
of  the  answers.     Some  of  the  men   thought  that  Chicago 
was  on  the  Pacific  Ocean.     Others,  in  answer  to  a  query  as 
to  who  was  the  head  of  the  United   States  Government, 
wavered  between  myself  and  Recorder  GoflF;    one  brilliant 
genius,  for  inscrutable  reasons,  placed  the  leadership  in  the 
New  York  Fire  Department.     Now  of  course  some  of  the 
men  who  answered  these  questions  wrong  were  nevertheless 
quite  capable  of  making  good  policemen ;    but  it  is  fair  to 
assume  that  on  the  average  the  candidate  who  has  a  rudi- 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


i6i 


mentary  knowledge  of  the  government,  geography,  and 
history  of  his  country  is  a  little  better  fitted,  in  point  of 
intelligence,  to  be  a  policeman  than  the  one  who  has  not. 

Therefore  I  felt  convinced,  after  full  experience,  that  as 
regards  very  large  classes  of  public  servants  by  far  the  best 
way  to  choose  the  men  for  appointment  was  by  means  of 
written  competitive  examination.  But  I  absolutely  split 
off  from  the  bulk  of  my  professional  Civil  Service  Refoi  ^ 
friends  when  they  advocated  written  competitive  examina- 
tions for  promotion.  In  the  Police  Department  I  found 
these  examinations  a  serious  handicap  in  the  way  of  getting 
the  best  men  promoted,  and  never  in  any  office  did  I  find 
that  the  written  competitive  promotion  examination  did 
any  good.  The  reason  for  a  written  competitive  entrance 
examination  is  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  head  of  the  office, 
or  the  candidate's  prospective  immediate  superior,  himself 
to  know  the  average  candidate  or  to  test  his  ability.  But 
when  once  in  office  the  best  way  to  test  any  man's  ability 
is  by  long  experience  in  seeing  him  actually  at  work.  His 
promotion  should  depend  upon  the  judgment  formed  of  him 
by  his  superiors. 

So  much  for  the  objections  to  the  examinations.  Now 
for  the  objections  to  the  men  who  advocated  the  reform. 
As  a  rule  these  men  were  high-minded  and  disinterested. 
Certain  of  them,  men  like  the  leaders  in  the  Maryland 
and  Indiana  Reform  Associations,  for  instances,  Messrs. 
Bonaparte  and  Rose,  Foulke  and  Swift,  added  common 
sense,  broad  sympathy,  and  practical  efficiency  to  their 
high-mindedness.  But  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and 
Boston  there  really  was  a  certain  mental  and  moral  thin- 
ness among  very  many  of  the  leaders  in  the  Civil  Service 
Reform  movement.  It  was  this  quality  whicti  made  them 
so  profoundly  antipathetic  to  vigorous  and  intensely  human 
people  of  the  stam^  of  my  friend  Joe  Murray  —  who,  as  I 
have  said,  always  felt  that  my  Civil  Service  Reform  affilia- 
tions formed  the  one  blot  on  an  otherwise  excellent  public 
record.  The  Civil  Service  Reform  movement  was  one  from 
above  downwards,  and  the  men  who  took  the  lead  in  it 
were  not  men  who  as  a  rule  possessed  a  very  profound  sym- 


i62    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

m 

pathy  with  or  understanding  of  the  ways  of  thought  and 
life  of  their  average  fellow-citizen.  They  were  not  men  who 
themselves  desired  to  be  letter-carriers  or  clerks  or  policemen, 
or  to  have  their  friends  appointed  to  these  positions.  Hav- 
ing no  temptation  themselves  in  this  direction,  they  were 
eagerly  anxious  to  prevent  other  people  getting  such  appoint- 
ments as  a  reward  for  political  services.  In  this  they  were 
quite  right.  It  would  be  impossible  to  run  any  big  public 
office  to  advantage  save  along  the  lines  of  the  strictest  ap- 
plication of  Civil  Service  Reform  principles  ;  and  the  system 
should  be  extended  throughout  our  governmental  service 
far  more  widely  than  is  now  the  case. 

But  there  are  other  and  more  vital  reforms  than  this. 
Too  many  Civil  Service  Reformers,  when  the  trial  came, 
proved  tepidly  indifferent  or  actively  hostile  to  reforms  that 
were  of  profound  and  far-reaching  social  and  industrial  con- 
sequence. \Iany  of  them  were  at  best  lukewarm  about 
movements  for  the  improvement  of  the  conditions  of  toil 
and  life  among  men  and  women  who  labor  under  hard  sur- 
roundings, and  were  positively  hostile  to  movements  which 
curbed  the  power  of  the  great  corporation  magnates  and 
directed  into  useful  instead  of  pernicious  channels  the 
activitier,  of  the  great  corporation  lawyers  who  advised 
them. 

Most  of  the  newspapers  which  regarded  themselves  as 
the  special  champions  of  Civil  Service  Reform  and  as  the 
hip^  >t  exponents  of  civic  virtue,  and  which  distrusted  the 
av<  r.  iie  citizen  and  shuddered  over  the  "coarseness"  of 
thi  j.rofessional  politicians,  were,  nevertheless,  given  to 
vices  even  more  contemptible  than,  although  not  so  gross  as, 
those  they  denounced  and  derided.  Their  editors  were 
refined  men  of  cultivated  tastes,  whose  pet  temptations  were 
backbiting,  mean  slander,  and  the  snobbish  worship  of  any- 
thing clothed  in  wealth  and  the  outwiard  appearances  of 
conventional  respectability.  They  were  not  robust  or 
powerful  men  ;  they  felt  ill  at  ease  in  the  company  of  rough, 
strong  men;  often  they  had  in  them  a  vein  of  physical 
timidity.  They  avenged  themselves  to  themselves  for  an 
uneasy  subconsciousness  of  their  own  shortcomings  by  sitting 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


i^i 


in  cloistered  —  or,  rather,  pleasantly  upholstered  —  se- 
clusion, and  sneering  at  and  lying  about  men  who  made 
them  feel  uncomfortable.  Sometimes  these  were  bad  men, 
who  made  them  feel  uncomfortable  by  the  exhibition  of 
coarse  and  repellent  vice ;  and  sometimes  they  were  nien  of 
high  character,  who  held  ideals  of  courage  and  of  service  to 
others,  and  who  looked  down  and  warred  against  the  short- 
comings of  swollen  wealth,  and  the  effortless,  easy  lives  of 
those  whose  horizon  is  bounded  by  a  sheltered  and  timid 
respectability.  These  newspapers,  owned  and  edited  by  these 
men,  although  free  from  the  repulsive  vulgarity  of  the 
yellow  press,  were  susceptible  to  influence  by  the  privileged 
interests,  and  were  almost  or  quite  as  hostile  to  manliness 
as  they  were  to  unrefined  vice  —  and  were  much  more  hostile 
to  it  than  to  the  typical  shortcomings  of  wealth  and  refine- 
ment. They  favored  Civil  Service  Reform;  they  favored 
copyright  laws,  and  the  removal  of  the  tariff  on  works  of 
art;  they  favored  all  the  proper  (and  even  more  strongly 
all  the  improper)  movements  for  international  peace  and 
arbitration;  in  short,  they  favored  all  good,  and  many 
goody-goody,  measures  so  long  as  they  did  not  cut  deep  into 
social  wrong  or  make  demands  on  National  and  individual 
virility.  They  opposed,  or  were  lukewarm  about,  efforts 
to  build  up  the  army  and  the  navy,  for  they  were  not  sensi- 
tive concerning  National  honor;  and,  above  all,  they  op- 
posed every  non-milk-and-water  effort,  however  sane,  to 
change  our  social  and  economic  system  in  such  a  fashion 
as  to  substitute  the  ideal  of  justice  towards  all  for  the  ideal 
of  kindly  charity  from  the  favored  few  to  the  possibly  grate- 
ful many. 

Some  of  the  men  foremost  in  the  struggle  for  Civil  Service 
Reform  have  taken  a  position  of  honorable  leadership  in  the 
battle  for  those  other  and  more  vital  reforms.  But  many  of 
them  promptly  abandoned  the  field  of  effort  for  decency 
when  the  battle  took  the  form,  not  of  a  fight  against  the 
petty  grafting  of  small  bosses  and  small  politicians  —  a 
vitally  necessary  battle,  be  it  remembered  —  but  of  a  fight 
against  the  great  intrenched  powers  of  privilege,  a  fight  to 
secure  justice  through  the  law  for  ordinary  men  and  women, 


i64    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

instead  of  leaving  them  to  suffer  cruel  injustice  cither  be- 
cause the  law  failed  to  protect  them  or  because  it  was  twisted 
from  its  legitimate  purposes  into  a  means  for  oppressing 
them. 

One  of  the  reasons  why  the  boss  so  often  keeps  his  hold, 
especially  in  municipal  matters,  is,  or  at  least  has  been  in  the 
past,  because  so  many  of  the  men  who  claim  to  be  reformers 
have  been  blind  to  the  need  of  working  in  human  fashion  for 
social  and  industrial  betterment.  Such  words  as  "boss" 
and  "machine"  now  imply  evil,  but  both  the  implication 
the  words  carry  and  the  definition  of  the  words  themselves 
are  somewhat  vague.  A  leader  is  necessary ;  but  his  op- 
ponents always,  call  him  a  boss.  An  organization  is  neces- 
sary ;  but  the  men  in  opposition  always  call  it  a  machine. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  a  real  and  deep  distinction  between 
the  leader  and  the  boss,  between  organizations  and  machines. 
A  political  leader  who  fights  openly  for  principles,  and  who 
keeps  his  position  of  leadership  by  stirring  the  consciences 
and  convincing  the  intellects  of  his  followers,  so  that  they 
have  confidence  in  him  and  will  follow  him  because  they  can 
achieve  greater  results  under  him  than  under  any  one  else, 
is  doing  work  which  is  indispensable  in  a  democracy.  The 
boss,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  man  who  does  not  gain  his 
power  by  open  means,  but  by  secret  means,  and  usually 
by  corrupt  means.  Some  of  the  worst  and  most  powerful 
bosses  in  our  political  history  either  held  no  public  office  or 
else  some  unimportant  public  office.  They  made  no  appeal 
either  to  intellect  or  conscience.  Their  work  was  done 
behind  closed  doors,  and  consisted  chiefly  in  the  use  of  that 
greed  which  gives  in  order  that  in  return  it  may  get.  A  boss 
of  this  kind  can  pull  wires  in  conventions,  can  manipulate 
members  of  the  Legislature,  can  control  the  giving  or  with- 
holding of  office,  and  serves  as  the  intermediary  for  bringing 
together  the  powers  of  corrupt  politics  and  corrupt  business. 
If  he  is  at  one  end  of  the  social  scale,  he  may  through  his 
agents  traffic  in  the  most  brutal  forms  of  vice  and  give  pro- 
tection to  the  purveyors  of  shame  and  sin  in  return  for  money 
bribes.  If  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale,  he  may  be  the  means 
of  securing  favors  from  high  public  officials,  legislative  or 


i^m 


APPLIED  IDEALISM 


i6S 


executive,  to  great  industrial  interests;  the  transaction 
being  sometimes  a  naked  matter  of  bargain  and  sale,  and 
sometimes  being  carried  on  in  such  manner  that  both  parlies 
thereto  can  more  or  less  successful!)-  disgui..e  it  to  their  con- 
sciences as  in  the  public  interest.  The  machine  is  simply 
another  name  for  the  kin  i  of  organization  which  is  certain 
to  grow  up  in  a  party  or  section  of  a  party  controlled  by  such 
bosses  as  these  and  by  their  henchmen,  whereas,  of  course, 
an  effective  organization  of  decent  men  is  essential  in  order 
to  secure  decent  politics. 

If  these  bosses   were   responsible   for   nothing  but   pure 
wickedness,  they  would  probably  last  but  a  short  time  in  any 
community.     And,  in  any  event,  if  the  men  who  are  horri- 
fied by  their  wickedness  were  themselves  as  practical  and  as 
thoroughly  in  touch  with  human  nature,  the  bosses  would 
have  a  short  shrift.     The  trouble  is  that  the  boss  does  under- 
stand human  nature,  and  that  he  fills  a  place  which  the  re- 
former cannot  fill  unless  he  likewise  understands   hunian 
nature.     Sometimes  the  boss  is  a  man  who  cares  for  political 
power  purely  for  its  own  sake,  as  he  might  care  for  any  other 
hobby;    more  often  he  has  in  view  some  definitely  selfish 
object  such  as  political  or  financial  advancement.     He  can 
rarely  accomplish  much  unless  he  has  another  side  to  him. 
A  successful  boss  is  very  apt  to  be  a  man  who,  in  addition 
to  committing  wickedness  in  his  own  interest,  also  does  look 
after  the  interests  of  others,  even  if  not  from  good  motives. 
There  are  some  communities  so  fortunate  that  there  are 
very  few  men  who  have  private  interests  to  be  served,  and 
in  these  the  power  of  the  boss  is  at  a  minimum.     There  are 
many  country  communities  of  this  type.     But  in  conimuni- 
ties  where  there  is  poverty  and  ignorance,  the  conditions 
are  ripe  for  the  growth  of  a  boss.     Moreover,  wherever  big 
business  interests  are  liable  either  to  be  improperly  favored 
or  improperly  discriminated   against  and   blackmailed   by 
public  officials  —  and  the  result  is  just  as  vicious  in  one  case 
as  in  the  other  —  the  boss  is  almost  certain  to  develop.     The 
best  way  of  getting  at  this  type  of  boss  is  by  keeping  the 
public  conscience  aroused  and  alert,  so  that  it  will  toler- 
ate neither  improper  attack  upon,  nor  improper  favoritism 


ir/,    THEODORK    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOC.RAPHY 


towards,   these  v.orporations,  and  will  quickly   punish  any- 
public  servant  guilty  of  either. 

There  is  often  much  g<M)d  in  the  type  (  '  boss,  especially 
conunon  in  hi)?  cities,  who  fulfills  towards  t  iic  people  of  his 
district  in  rough  and  ready  fashion  the  position  of  friend 
and  protector.  He  uses  his  influence  to  get  jobs  for  young 
men  who  need  them.  He  goes  into  court  for  a  wild  young 
fellow  who  has  gotten  into  trouble.  He  helps  out  with  cash 
or  credit  the  widow  who  is  in  straits,  or  the  breadwinner 
who  is  crippled  or  for  some  other  cause  temporarily  out  of 
work.  He  organizes  clambakes  and  chowder  parties  and 
picnics,  and  is  consulted  by  the  local  labor  leaders  when  a 
cut  in  wages  is  threatened.  P'or  some  of  his  constituents 
he  does  proper  favors,  and  for  others  wholly  improper 
favors ;  but  he  preserves  human  relations  with  all.  He 
may  be  a  very  bad  and  very  corrupt  man,  a  nun  whose 
action  in  blackmailing  and  protecting  vice  is  of  far-reaching 
damage  to  his  constituents.  But  these  constituents  are 
for  the  most  part  men  and  women  who  struggle  hard  against 
poverty  and  with  whom  the  problem  of  living  is  very  real 
and  very  close.  They  would  prefer  clean  and  honest  gov- 
ernment, if  this  clean  and  honest  government  is  accom- 
panied by  human  sympathy,  human  understanding.  But 
an  appeal  made  to  them  for  virtue  in  the  abstract,  an  appeal 
made  by  good  men  who  do  not  really  understand  their  needs, 
will  often  pass  quite  unheeded,  if  on  the  other  side  stands  the 
boss,  the  friend  and  benefactor,  who  may  have  been  guilty 
of  much  wrong-doing  in  things  that  they  are  hardly  aware 
concern  them,  but  who  appeals  to  them,  not  only  for  the 
sake  of  favors  to  come,  but  in  the  name  of  gratitude  and 
loyalty,  and  above  all  of  understanding  and  fellow-feeling. 
They  have  a  feeling  of  clan-loyalty  to  him;  his  and  their 
relations  may  be  substantially  those  which  are  right  and 
proper  among  primitive  people  still  in  the  clan  stage  of  moral 
development.  The  successful  fight  against  this  type  of 
vicious  boss,  and  the  type  of  vicious  politics  which  produces 
it,  can  be  made  only  by  men  who  have  a  genuine  fellow- 
feeling  for  and  understanding  of  the  people  for  and  with 
whom  they  are  to  work,  and  who  in  practical  fashion  seek 
their  social  and  industrial  benefit. 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


if'7 


There  arc  communities  of  poor  men,  whose  lives  are  hard, 
in  which  the  boss,  though  he  would  be  out  of  place  in  a  more 
advanced   community,   if   fundamentally   an   honest   man, 
meets  a  real  need  which  would  otherwise  not  be  met.     Be- 
cause of  his  limitations  in  other  than  purely  local  matters 
it  may  be  our  duty  to  fight  such  a  boss ;   but  it  may  also  be 
our  duty  to  recognize,  within  his  limitations,  both  his  sin- 
cerity and  his  usefulness.  i     .      • 
Yet  again  even  the  boss  who  really  is  evil,  like  the  busi- 
ness man  who  really  is  evil,  may  on  certain  points  be  sound, 
and  be  doing  good  work.     It  may  be  the  highest  duty  of  the 
patriotic  public  servant  to  work  with  the  big  boss  or  the  big 
business  man  on  these  points,  while  refusing  to  work  with 
him  on  others.    In  the  same  way  there  are  many  self-styled 
reformers  whose  conduct  is  such  as  to  warrant  Tom  Reed  s 
bitter  remark,  that  when  Dr.  Johnson  defined  patriotism 
as   the   last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel  he  was  ignorant  of   the 
infinite   possibilities   contained   in   the   word   reform.     Yet, 
none  the  less,  it  is  our  duty  to  work  for  the  reforms  these  men 
champion,  without  regard  to  the  misconduct  of  the  men 
themselves  on  other  points.     I  have  known  in  my  life  many 
big  business  men  and  many  big  political  bosses  who  often 
or  even  generally  did  evil,  but  who  on  some  occasions  and  on 
certain  issues  were  right.     I   never  hesitated  to  do  battle 
against  these  men  when  they  were  wrong ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  long  as  they  were  going  my  way  I  was  glad  to  have 
them  do  so.     To  have  repudiated  their  aid  when  they  were 
right  and  were  striving  for  a  right  end,  and  for  what  was  of 
benefit  to  the  people  —  no  matter  what  their  motives  may 
have  been  —  would  have  been  childish,  and  moreover  would 
have  itself  been  misconduct  against  the  people. 

My  duty  was  to  stand  with  every  one  while  he  was  right, 
and  to  stand  against  him  when  he  went  wrong ;  and  this  1 
•  have  tried  to  do  as  regards  individuals  and  as  regards  groups 
of  individuals.  When  a  business  man  or  labor  leader,  poli- 
tician or  reformer,  is  right,  I  support  him;  when  he  goes 
wrong,  I  leave  him.  When  Mr.  Lorimer  upheld  the  war  for 
the  liberation  of  Cuba,  I  supported  him ;  when  he  became 
United  States  Senator  by  improper  methods,  I  opposed  him. 


MICROCOPY   RESOIUTION   TIST   CHART 

-ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    2! 


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^     :^PPUED  JWIGE  J 

^^  -ocnester.    New     'orl.  t-VhC'J         uSA 

^^         ■  '  '6)    -.8.^   -  0300  -  F-»!une 


i68    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


■K.^. 


The  principles  or  methods  which  the  Socialists  advocate  and 
which  I  believe  to  be  in  the  interest  of  the  people  I  support, 
and  those  which  I  believe  to  be  against  the  interest  of  the 
people  I  oppose.  Moreover,  when  a  man  has  done  evil,  but 
changes,  and  works  for  decency  and  righteousness,  and  when, 
as  far  as  I  can  see,  the  change  is  real  and  the  man's  conduct 
sincere,  then  I  welcome  him  and  work  heartily  with  him,  as 
an  equal  with  an  equal.  For  thirty  years  after  the  Civil 
War  the  creed  of  mere  materialism  was  rampant  in  both 
American  politics  and  American  business,  and  many,  many 
strong  men,  in  accoi  dance  with  the  prevailing  commercial 
and  political  morality,  did  things  for  which  they  deserve 
blame  and  condemnation  ;  but  if  they  now  sincerely  change, 
and  strive  for  better  things,  it  is  unwise  and  unjust  to  bar 
them  from  fellowship.  So  long  as  they  work  for  evil,  smite 
them  with  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon  !  When 
they  change  and  show  their  faith  by  their  works,  remember 
the  words  of  Ezekiel  :  "If  the  wicked  will  turn  from  all  the 
sins  he  has  committed,  and  keep  all  my  statutes,  and  do  that 
which  is  lawful  and  right,  he  shall  surely  live,  he  shall  not 
die.  All  his  transgressions  that  he  hath  committed,  they 
shall  not  be  mentioned  unto  him :  in  his  righteousness  that 
he  hath  done  he  shall  live.  Have  I  any  pleasure  at  all  that 
the  wicked  should  die  .'  saith  the  Lord  God ;  and  not  that 
he  should  return  from  his  ways  and  live  .'" 

Every  man  who  has  been  in  practical  politics  grows  to 
realize  that  politicians,  big  and  little,  are  no  more  all  of  them 
bad  than  they  are  all  of  them  good.  Many  of  these  men  are 
very  bad  men  indeed,  but  there  are  others  among  them  — 
arrd  some  among  those  held  up  to  special  obloquy,  too  — 
who,  even  although  they  may  have  done  much  that  is  evil, 
also  show  traits  of  sterling  worth  which  many  of  their  critics 
wholly  lack.  There  are  few  men  for  whom  I  have  ever  felt 
a  more  cordial  and  contemptuous  dislike  than  for  some  of  the 
bosses  and  big  professional  politicians  with  whom  [  have 
been  brought  into  contact.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  case 
of  some  political  leaders  who  were  most  bitterly  attacked  as 
bosses,  I  grew  to  know  certain  sides  of  their  characters  which 
inspired  in  me  a  very  genuine  regard  and  respect. 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


169 


To  read  much  of  the  assault  on  Senator  Hanna,  one  would 
have  thought  that  he  was  a  man  incapable  of  patriotism  or 
of  far-sighted  devotion  to  the  country's  good.  I  was  brought 
into  intimate  contact  with  him  only  during  the  two  and  a 
half  years  immediately  preceding  his  death.  I  was  then 
President,  and  perforce  watched  all  his  actions  at  close 
range.  During  that  time  he  showed  himself  to  be  a  man  of 
rugged  sincerity  of  purpose,  of  great  courage  and  loyalty, 
and  of  unswerving  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  Nation 
and  the  people  as  he  saw  those  interests.  He  was  as  sin- 
cerely desirous  of  helping  laboring  men  as  of  helping  capital- 
ist's. His  ideals  were  in  many  ways  not  my  ideals,  and  there 
were  points  where  both  by  temperament  and  by  conviction 
we  were  far  apart.  Before  this  time  he  had  always  been  un- 
friendly to  me ;  and  I  do  not  think  he  ever  grew  to  like  me, 
at  any  rate  not  until  the  very  end  of  his  life.  Moreover,  I 
came  to  the  Presidency  under  circumstances  which,  if  he 
had  been  a  smaller  man,  would  inevitably  have  thrown  him 
into  violent  antagonism  to  me.  He  was  the  close  and  in- 
timate friend  of  President  McKinley.  He  was  McKinley's 
devoted  ally  and  follower,  and  his  trusted  adviser,  who  was  in 
complete  sympathy  with  him.  Partly  because  of  this  friend- 
ship, his  position  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  country  was  unique. 

With  McKinley's  sudden  death  Senator  Hanna  found 
himself  bereft  of  his  dearest  friend,  while  I,  who  had  just 
come  to  the  Presidency,  was  in  his  view  an  untried  man, 
whose  trustworthiness  on  many  public  questions  was  at 
least  doubtful.  Ordinarily,  as  has  been  shown,  not  only  in 
our  history,  but  in  the  history  of  all  other  countries,  in  count- 
less instances,  over  and  over  again,  this  situation  would  have 
meair  suspicion,  ill  will,  and,  at  the  last,  open  and  violent 
antagonism.  Such  was  not  the  result,  in  this  case,  pri- 
marily because  Senator  Hanna  had  in  him  the  quality  that 
enabled  him  to  meet  a  serious  crisis  with  dignity,  with  power, 
and  with  disinterested  desire  to  work  for  the  common  good. 
Within  a  few  days  of  my  accession  he  called  on  me,  and  with 
entire  friendliness  and  obvious  sincerity,  but  also  with  entire 
self-respect,  explained  that  he  mourned  McKinley  as  prob- 
ably no  other  man  did ;   that  he  had  not  been  especially  my 


I70    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

friend,  but  that  he  wished  me  to  understand  that  thence- 
forward, on  every  question  where  he  could  conscientiously 
support  me,  I  could  count  upon  his  giving  me  as  loyal  aid 
as  it  was  in  his  power  to  render.  He  added  that  this  must 
not  be  understood  as  committing  him  to  favor  me  for  nomina- 
tion and  election,  because  that  matter  must  be  left  to  take 
care  of  itself  as  events  should  decide ;  but  that,  aside  from 
this,  what  he  said  was  to  be  taken  literally ;  in  other  words, 
he  would  do  his  best  to  make  my  Administration  a  success 
by  supporting  me  heartily  on  every  point  on  which  he  con- 
sciff'tiously  could,  and  that  this  I  could  count  upon.  He 
kc^t  his  word  absolutely.  He  never  became  especially 
favorable  to  my  nomination ;  and  most  of  his  close  friends 
became  bitterly  opposed  to  me  and  used  every  effort  to 
persuade  him  to  try  to  bring  about  my  downfall.  Most 
men  in  his  position  would  have  been  tempted  to  try  to  make 
capital  at  my  expense  by  antagonizing  rne  and  discrediting 
me  so  as  to  make  ray  policies  fail,  just  for  the  sake  of  making 
them  fail.  Senator  Hanna,  on  the  contrary,  did  everything 
possible  to  make  them  succeed.  He  kept  his  word  in  the 
letter  and  the  spirit,  and  on  every  point  on  which  he  felt 
conscientiously  able  to  support  me  he  gave  me  the  heartiest 
and  most  effective  support,  and  did  all  in  his  power  to  make 
my  Administration  a  success ;  and  this  with  no  hope  of  any 
reward  for  himself,  of  any  gratitude  from  me,  or  of  any  ap- 
preciation by  the  public  at  large,  but  solely  because  he 
deemed  such  action  necessary  for  the  well-being  of  the 
country  as  a  whole. 

My  experience  with  Senator  Quay  was  similar.  I  had 
no  personal  relations  with  him  before  I  was  President,  and 
knew  nothing  of  him  save  by  hearsay.  Soon  after  I  became 
President,  Senator  Quay  called  upon  me,  told  me  he  had 
known  me  very  slighdy,  that  he  thought  most  men  who 
claimed  to  be  reformers  were  hypocrites,  but  that  he  deemed 
mc  sincere,  that  he  thought  conditions  had  become  such  that 
aegressivc  courage  and  honesty  were  necessary  in  order  to 
remedy  them,  that  he  believed  I  intended  to  be  a  good  and 
efficient  President,  and  that  to  the  best  of  his  ability  he 
would  support  me  in  making  my  Administration  a  success. 


APPLIED  IDEALISM 


171 


He  kept  his  word  with  absolute  good  faith.  He  had  been 
in  the  Civil  War,  and  was  a  medal  of  honor  man;  and  I 
think  my  having  been  in  the  Spanish  War  gave  him  at  the 
outset  a  kindly  feeling  toward  me.  He  was  also  a  very  well- 
read  man  —  I  owe  to  him,  for  instance,  my  acquaintance 
with  the  writings  of  the  Finnish  novelist  Topelius.  Not 
only  did  he  support  me  on  almost  every  public  question  in 
which  I  was  most  interested  —  including,  I  am  convinced, 
every  one  on  which  he  felt  he  conscientiously  could  do  so  — 
but  he  also  at  the  time  of  his  death  gave  a  striking  proof  of 
his  disinterested  desire  to  render  a  service  to  certain  poor 
jeople,  and  this  under  conditions  in  which  not  only  would 
le  never  know  if  the  service  were  rendered  but  in  which  he 
lad  no  reason  to  expect  that  his  part  in  it  would  ever  be 
made  known  to  any  other  man. 

Quay  was  descended  from  a  French  voyageur  who  had 
some  Indian  blood  in  him.  He  was  proud  of  this  Indian 
blood,  took  an  especial  interest  in  Indians,  and  whenever 
Indians  came  to  Washington  they  always  called  on  him. 
Once  during  my  Administration  a  delegation  of  Iroquois 
came  over  from  Canada  to  call  on  me  at  the  White  House. 
Their  visit  had  in  it  something  that  was  pathetic  as  well  as 
amusing.  They  represented  the  descendants  of  the  Six 
Nations,  who  fled  to  Canada  after  Sullivan  harried  their 
towns  in  the  Revolutionary  War.  Now,  a  century  and  a 
quarter  later,  their  people  thought  that  they  would  like  to 
come  back  into  the  United  States  ;  and  these  representatives 
had  called  upon  me  with  the  dim  hope  that  perhaps  I  could 
give  their  fibes  land  on  which  they  could  settle.  As  soon 
as  they  reached  Washington  they  asked  Quay  to  bring  them 
to  call  on  me,  which  he  did,  telling  me  that  of  course  their 
errand  was  hopeless  and  that  he  had  explained  as  much  to 
them,  but  that  they  would  like  me  to  extend  the  courtesy  of  an 
interview.  At  the  close  of  the  interview,  which  had  been  con- 
ducted with  all  the  solemnities  of  cammet  and  wampum,  the 
Indians  filed  out.  Quay,  before  following  them,  turned  to 
me  with  his  usual  emotionless  face  and  said,  "Good-by,  Mr. 
President ;  this  reminds  one  of  the  Flight  of  a  Tartar  Tribe, 
doesn't  it .?"     I  answered,  "So  you're  fond  of  De  Quincey, 


172    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Senator?"  to  which  Quay  responded,  "Yes;  always  liked 
De  Quinccy ;  good-by."  And  away  he  went  with  the 
tribesmen,  who  seemed  to  have  walked  out  of  a  remote  past. 
Quay  had  become  particularly  concerned  about  the  Dcla- 
wares  in  the  Indian  Territory.  He  felt  that  the  Interior 
Department  did  not  do  hem  justice.  He  also  felt  that  his 
colleagues  of  the  Senate  took  no  interest  in  them.  When  in 
the  spring  of  1904  he  lay  in  his  house  mortally  sick,  he  sent 
me  word  that  he  had  something  important  to  say  to  me,  and 
would  have  himself  carried  round  to  see  me.  I  sent  back 
word  not  to  think  of  doing  so,  and  that  on  my  way  back  from 
church  next  Sunday  I  would  stop  in  and  call  on  him.  This  I 
accordingly  did.  He  was  lying  in  his  bed,  death  written  on 
his  face.  He  thanked  me  for  coming,  and  then  explained 
that,  as  he  was  on  the  point  of  death  and  knew  he  would 
never  return  to  Washington  —  it  was  late  spring  and  he  was 
about  to  lea\'e  —  he  wished  to  see  me  to  get  my  personal 
promise  that,  after  he  died,  I  would  myself  look  after  the 
interests  of  the  Delaware  Indians.  He  added  that  he  did 
not  trust  the  Interior  Department  —  although  he  knew 
that  I  did  not  share  his  views  on  this  point  —  and  that  still 
less  did  he  believe  that  any  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Senate 
would  exert  themselves  in  the  interests  of  the  Delawares, 
and  that  therefore  he  wished  my  personal  assurance  that  I 
would  personally  see  that  no  injustice  was  done  them.  I 
told  him  I  would  do  so,  and  then  added,  in  rathei'  perfunc- 
tory fashion,  that  he  must  not  take  such  a  gloomy  view  of 
himself,  that  when  he  got  away  for  the  summer  I  hoped  he 
would  recover  and  be  back  all  right  when  Congress  opened. 
.\  gleam  came  into  the  old  fighter's  eyes  and  he  answered  : 
"Xo,  I  am  dying,  and  you  know  it.  I  don't  mind  dying; 
but  I  do  wish  it  were  possible  for  me  to  get  oflF  into  the  great 
north  woods  and  crawl  out  on  a  rock  in  the  sun  and  die  like 
a  wolf!" 

I  never  saw  him  again.  When  he  died  I  sent  a  telegram 
of  sympathy  to  his  wife.  A  paper  which  constantly  preached 
reform,  and  which  kept  up  its  circulation  by  the  no  less  con- 
stant practice  of  slander,  a  paper  which  in  theory  condemned 
all  public  men  whi>  violated  the  eighth  commandment,  and  in 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


17.1 


practice  subsisted  by  incessant  violation  of  the  ninth,  assailed 
me  for  sending  my  message  to  the  dead  man's  wife.  I  knew 
the  editors  of  this  paper,  and  the  editor  who  was  their  pred- 
ecessor. They  had  led  lives  of  bodily  case  and  the  avoid- 
ance of  bodily  risk;  they  earned  their  livelihood  by  the 
practice  of  mendacity  for  profit ;   and  they  delivered  malig- 


Matthew  Stanley  Quay. 

"  In  his  youth  he  freely  risked  his  life  for  a  great  ideal,  and  when  death  w  is  already  clutch- 
ing his  breast  he  spent  almost  his  last  breath  in  serving  humble  and  friendless  people 
whom  he  had  served  with  disinterested  loyalty." 

nant  judgment  on  a  dead  man  who,  whatever  his  faults, 
had  in  his  youth  freely  risked  his  life  for  a  great  ideal,  and 
who  when  death  was  already  clutching  his  breast  had  spent 
almost  his  last  breath  on  behalf  of  humble  and  friendless 
people  whom  he  had  served  with  disinterested  loyalty. 

There  is  no  greater  duty  than  to  war  on  the  corrupt  and 
unprincipled  boss,  and  on  the  corrupt  and  unprincipled 
business  man ;  and  for  the  matter  of  that,  on  the  corrupt 


174    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and  unprincipled  labor  leader  also,  and  on  the  corrupt 
and  unprincipled  editor,  and  on  any  one  else  who  is 
corrupt  and  unprincipled.  But  where  the  conditions  are 
such,  whether  in  politics  or  in  business,  that  the  great 
majority  of  men  have  behaved  in  a  way  which  is  gradually 
seen  to  be  improper,  but  which  at  one  time  did  not  conflict 
with  the  generally  accepted  morality,  then  the  warfare  on 
the  system  should  not  include  warfare  on  the  men  them- 
selves, unless  they  decline  to  amend  their  ways  and  to  dis- 
sociate themselves  from  the  system.  There  are  many  good, 
unimaginative  citizens  who  in  politics  or  in  business  act  in 
accordance  with  accepted  standards,  in  a  matter-of-course 
way,  without  questioning  these  standards ;  until  something 
happens  which  sharply  arouses  them  to  the  situation,  where- 
upon they  try  to  work  for  better  things.  The  proper  course 
in  such  event  is  to  let  bygones  be  bygones,  and  if  the  men 
prove  by  their  actions  the  sincerity  of  their  conversion, 
heartily  to  work  with  them  for  the  betterment  of  business 
and  political  conditions. 

By  the  lime  that  I  was  ending  my  career  as  Civil  Service 
Commissioner  I  was  already  growing  to  understand  that 
mere  improvement  in  political  conditions  by  itself  was  not 
enough.  I  dimly  realized  that  an  even  greater  fight  must 
be  waged  to  improve  economic  conditions,  and  to  secure 
social  and  industrial  justice,  justice  as  between  individuals 
and  justice  as  between  classes.  I  began  to  see  tha*  political 
effort  was  largely  valuable  as  it  found  expression  and  re- 
sulted in  such  social  and  industrial  betterment.  I  was 
gradually  puzzling  out,  or  trying  to  puzzle  out,  the  answers 
to  various  questions  —  some  as  yet  unsolvable  to  any  of  us, 
but  for  the  solution  of  which  it  is  the  bounden  duty  of  all  of 
us  to  work.  I  had  grown  to  realize  very  keenly  that  the 
duty  of  the  Government  to  protect  women  and  children  must 
be  extended  to  include  the  protection  of  all  the  crushable 
elements  of  labor.  I  saw  that  it  was  the  aflFair  of  all  our 
people  to  see  that  justice  obtained  between  the  big  corpora- 
lion  and  its  employees,  and  between  the  big  corporation  and 
its  smaller  rivals,  as  well  as  its  customers  and  the  general 
public.     I  saw  that  it  was  the  affair  of  all  of  us,  and  not  only 


APPLIED  IDEALISM 


175 


of  the  employer,  if  dividends  went  up  and  wages  went  down  ; 
that  it  was  to  the  interest  of  all  of  us  that  a  full  share  of  the 
benefit  of  improved  machinery  should  go  to  the  workman 
who  used  the  machinery ;  and  also  that  it  was  to  the  interest 
of  all  of  us  that  each  man,  whether  brain  worker  or  hand 
worker,  should  do  the  best  work  of  which  he  was  capable, 
and  that  there  should  be  some  correspondence  between  the 
value  of  the  work  and  the  value  of  the  reward.  It  is  these 
and  many  similar  q  estions  which  in  their  sum  make  up  the 
great  social  and  industrial  problems  of  to-day,  the  most  in- 
teresting and  important  of  the  problems  with  which  our 
public  life  must  deal. 

In  handling  these  problems  I  believe  that  much  can  be 
done  by  the  Government.  Furthermore,  I  believe  that, 
after  all  that  the  Government  can  do  has  been  done,  there 
will  remain  as  the  most  vital  of  all  factors  the  individual 
character  of  the  average  man  and  the  average  woman.  No 
governmental  action  can  do  morr  than  supplement  individ- 
ual action.  Moreover,  there  must  be  collective  action  of 
kinds  distinct  from  governmental  action.  .A  body  of  public 
opinion  must  be  formed,  must  make  itself  felt,  and  in  the 
end  transform,  and  be  transformed  by,  the  gradual  raising  of 
individual  standards  of  conduct. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  difficult  it  is  to  make  some  men 
understand  that  insistence  upon  one  factor  does  not  and 
must  not  mean  failure  fully  to  recognize  other  factors.  The 
selfish  individual  needs  to  be  taught  that  we  must  now 
shackle  cunning  by  law  exactly  as  a  few  centuries  back  we 
shackled  force  by  law.  Unrestricted  individualism  spells 
ruin  to  the  individual  himself.  But  so  does  the  elimination 
of  individualism,  whether  by  law  or  custom.  It  is  a  capital 
error  to  fail  to  recognize  the  vital  need  of  good  laws.  It  is 
also  a  capital  error  to  believe  that  good  laws  will  accomplish 
anything  unless  the  average  man  has  the  right  stuff  in  him. 
The  toiler,  the  manual  laborer,  has  received  less  than  jus- 
tice, and  he  must  be  protected,  both  by  law,  by  custom,  and 
by  the  exercise  of  his  right  to  increase  his  wage ;  and  yet 
to  decrease  the  quantity  and  quality  of  his  work  will  work 
only  evil.     There  must  be  a  far  greater  meed  of  respect  and 


176    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


reward  for  the  hand  worker  than  we  now  give  him,  if  our 
society  is  to  be  put  on  a  sound  basis ;  and  this  respect  and 
reward  cannot  be  given  him  unless  he  is  as  ambitious  to  do 
the  best  possible  work  as  is  the  highest  type  of  brain  worker, 
whether  doctor  or  writer  or  artist.  There  must  be  a  raising 
of  standards,  and  not  a  leveling  down  to  the  standard  of  the 
poorest  and  most  inefficient.  There  is  urgent  need  of  in- 
telligent governmental  action  to  assist  in  making  the  life 
of  the  man  who  tills  the  soil  all  that  it  should  be,  and  to  see 
that  the  manual  worker  gets  his  full  share  of  the  reward  for 
what  he  helps  produce ;  but  if  either  farmer,  mechanic,  or 
day  laborer  is  shiftless  or  lazy,  if  he  shirks  downright  hard 
work,  if  he  is  stupid  or  self-indulgent,  then  no  law  can  save 
him,  and  he  must  give  way  to  a  better  type. 

I  suppose  that  some  good  people  will  misunderstand  what 
I  say,  and  will  insist  on  taking  only  half  of  it  as  representing 
the  whole.  Let  me  repeat.  When  I  say,  that,  even  after 
we  have  all  the  good  laws  necessary,  the  chief  factor  in  any 
given  man's  success  or  failure  must  be  that  man's  own  char- 
acter, it  must  not  be  inferred  that  I  am  in  the  least  minimiz- 
ing 'he  importance  of  these  laws,  the  real  and  vital  need  for 
them.  The  struggle  for  individual  advancement  and  de- 
velopment can  be  brought  to  naught,  or  indefinitely  re- 
tarded, by  the  absence  of  law  or  by  bad  law.  It  can  be  im- 
measurably aided  by  organized  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
State.  Collective  action  and  individual  action,  public 
law  and  private  character,  are  both  necessary.  It  is  only 
by  a  slow  and  patient  inward  transformation  such  as  these 
laws  aid  in  bringing  about  that  men  are  really  helped  up- 
ward in  their  struggle  for  a  higher  and  a  fuller  life.  Recog- 
nition of  individual  character  as  the  most  important  of  all 
factors  does  not  mean  failure  fully  to  recognize  that  we 
must  have  good  laws,  and  that  we  must  have  our  best  men 
in  office  to  enforce  these  laws.  The  Nation  collectively  will 
in  this  way  be  able  to  be  of  real  and  genuine  service  to  each 
of  us  individually ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  wisdom  of 
the  collective  action  will  mainly  depend  on  the  high  individ- 
ual average  of  citizenship. 

The  relationship  of  man  and  woman  is  the  fundamental 


APPLIED  IDEALISM 


177 


relationship  that  stands  at  the  base  of  the  whole  social  struc- 
ture. Much  can  be  done  by  law  towards  putting  women  on 
a  footing  of  complete  and  entire  equal  rights  with  man  — 
including  the  right  to  vote,  the  right  to  hold  and  use  property, 
and  the  right  to  enter  any  profession  she  desires  on  the  same 
terms  as  the  man.  Yet  when  this  has  been  done  it  will 
amount  to  little  unless  on  the  one  hand  the  man  himself 
realizes  his  duty  to  the  woman,  and  unless  on  the  other 
hand  the  woman  realizes  that  she  has  no  claim  to  rights 
unless  she  performs  the  duties  that  go  with  those  rights  and 
that  alone  justify  her  in  appealing  to  them.  A  cruel,  selfish, 
or  licentious  man  is  an  abhorr.^nt  member  of  the  commu- 
nity ;  but,  after  all,  his  actions  are  no  worse  in  the  long  run 
than  those  of  the  woman  who  is  content  to  be  a  parasite  on 
others,  who  is  cold,  selfish,  caring  for  nothing  but  frivolous 
pleasure  and  ignoble  ease.  The  law  of  worthy  effort,  the 
law  of  service  for  a  worthy  end,  without  regard  to  whether 
it  brings  pleasure  or  pain,  is  the  only  right  law  of  life,  whether 
for  man  or  for  woman.  The  man  must  not  be  selfish ;  nor, 
if  the  woman  is  wise,  will  she  let  the  man  grow  selfish,  and 
this  not  only  for  her  own  sake  but  for  his.  One  of  the 
prime  needs  is  to  remember  that  almost  every  duty  is  com- 
posed of  two  seemingly  conflicting  elements,  and  that  over- 
insistence  on  one,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  may  defeat 
its  own  end.  Any  man  who  studies  the  statistics  of  the 
birth-rate  among  the  native  Americans  of  New  England,  or 
among  the  native  French  of  France,  needs  not  to  be  told 
that  when  prudence  and  forethought  are  carried  to  the  point 
of  cold  selfishness  and  self-indulgence,  the  race  is  bound  to 
disappear.  Taking  into  account  the  women  who  for  good 
reasons  do  not  marry,  or  who  when  married  are  childless  or 
are  able  to  have  but  one  or  two  children,  it  is  evident  that 
the  married  woman  able  to  have  children  must  on  an  average 
have  four  or  the  race  will  not  perpetuate  itself.  This  is  the 
mere  statement  of  a  self-evident  truth.  Yet  foolish  and 
self-indulgent  people  often  resent  this  statement  as  if  it 
were  in  some  way  possible  by  denunciation  to  reverse  the 
facts  of  nature;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  improvident  and 
shiftless  people,  inconsiderate  and  brutal  people,  treat  the 


178    THEODORK    ROOSEVKLT-AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

statement  as  it  it  justified  heads  of  families  in  having  enor- 
mous numbers  of  badly  nourished,  badly  brought  up,  and 
badly  cared  for  children  for  whom  they  make  no  effort  to 
provide.  A  man  must  think  well  before  he  marries.  He 
must  be  a  tender  and  considerate  husband  and  realize  that 
there  is  no  other  human  being  to  whom  he  owes  so  much  of 
love  and  regard  and  consideration  as  he  does  to  the  woman 
who  with  pain  bears  and  with  labor  rears  the  children  that 
are  his.  No  words  can  paint  the  scorn  and  contempt  which 
must  be  felt  by  all  right-thinking  men,  not  only  for  the 
brutal  husband,  but  for  the  husband  who  fails  to  show  full 
loyalty  and  consideration  to  his  wife.  Moreover,  he  must 
work,  he  must  do  his  part  in  the  world.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  woman  must  realize  that  she  has  no  more  right  to  shirk 
the  business  of  wifehood  and  motherhood  than  the  man  has 
to^  shirk  his  business  as  breadwinner  ^or  the  household. 
Women  should  have  free  access  to  every  field  of  labor  which 
they  care  to  enter,  and  when  their  work  is  as  valuable  as 
that  of  a  man  it  should  be  paid  as  highly.  Vet  normally  for 
the  man  and  the  woman  whose  welfare  is  more  important 
than  the  welfare  of  any  other  human  beings,  the  woman 
must  remain  the  housemother,  the  homekeeper,  and  the  man 
must  remain  the  breadwinner,  the  provider  for  the  wife 
who  bears  his  children  and  for  the  children  she  brings  into 
the  world.  No  other  work  is  as  valuable  or  as  exacting  for 
either  man  or  woman;  it  must  always,  in  every  healthy 
society,  be  for  both  man  and  woman  the  prime  work,  the 
most  important  work  ;  normally  all  other  work  is  of  second- 
ary importance,  and  .nust  come  as  an  addition  to,  not  a 
substitute  for,  this  primary  work.  The  partnership  should 
be  one  of  equal  rights,  one  of  love,  of  self-respect  and  urself- 
ishness,  above  all  a  partnership  for  the  performance  of  the 
most  vitally  important  of  all  duties.  The  performance  of 
duty,  and  not  an  indulge  nee  in  vapid  ease  and  vapid  pleasure, 
is  all  that  makes  life  worth  while. 

Suffrage  for  women  should  be  looked  on  from  this  stand- 
point. Personally  I  feel  that  it  is  exactly  as  much  a  "right" 
of  women  as  of  men  to  vote.  f?ut  the  important  point 
with  both  men  and  women  is  to  treat  the  exercise  of  the 


i  i 


Copyrtiht  by  Falk. 

Mary  Antin. 


"  I  always  favored  Woman's 
Suffrase,  but  only  tepidly, 
until  my  association  with 
women  like  Jane  Addams 
and  Frances  Kellor,  who 
desired  it  as  one  means  of 
enabling  them  to  render 
better  and  more  efficient 
service,  changed  me  into  a 
zealous  instead  of  a  luke- 
warm adherent  of  the  cause, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  a 
few  of  the  best  women  of 
the  same  type,  women  like 
Mary  Antin,  did  not  favor 
the  movement." 


i-HAttcLs  Kellor. 


i8o    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


t 


suffrage  as  a  duty,  which,  in  the  long  run,  must  be  well  per- 
formed to  be  of  the  slightest  value.  I  always  favored 
woman's  suflFrage,  but  only  tepidly,  until  my  association 
with  women  like  Jane  Addams  and  Frances  Kellor,  who 
desired  it  as  one  means  of  enabling  them  to  rend-^r  better  and 
more  efficient  service,  changed  me  into  a  zealous  instead  of 
a  lukewarm  adherent  of  the  cause  —  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  a 
few  of  the  best  women  of  the  same  type,  women  like  Mary 
Antin,  did  not  favor  the  movement.  A  vote  is  like  a  rifle  : 
its  usefulness  depends  upon  the  character  of  the  user.  The 
mere  possession  of  the  vote  will  no  more  benefit  men  and 
women  not  sufficiently  developed  to  use  it  than  the  posses- 
sion of  rifles  will  turn  untrained  Egyptian  fellaheen  into  sol- 
diers. This  is  as  true  of  woman  as  of  man  —  and  no  more 
true.  Universal  suflFrage  in  ilayti  has  not  made  the  Haytians 
able  to  govern  themselves  in  any  true  sense;  and  woman 
suflFrage  in  Utah  in  no  shape  or  way  affected  the  problem  of 
polygamy.  I  believe  in  suflFrage  for  women  in  America,  be- 
cause I  think  they  are  fit  for  it.  I  believe  for  women,  as  for 
men,  more  in  the  duty  of  fitting  one's  self  to  do  well  and 
wisely  with  the  ballot  than  in  the  naked  right  tocast  the  ballot. 
I  wish  that  people  would  read  books  like  the  novels  and 
stories,  at  once  strong  and  charming,  of  Henry  Bordeaux, 
books  like  Kathleen  Norris's  "Mother,"  and  Cornelia 
Comer's  "Preliminaries,"  and  would  use  these,  and  other 
such  books,  as  tracts,  now  and  then  !  Perhaps  the  following 
correspondence  will  give  a  better  idea  than  I  can  otherwise 
give  of  the  problems  that  in  everyday  life  come  before  men 
and  women,  and  of  the  need  that  the  man  shall  show  him- 
self unselfish  and  considerate,  and  do  his  full  share  of  the 
joint  duty : 


Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt: 


January  3,  1913. 


Dear  Sir  —  I  suppose  you  are  willing  to  stand  sponsor 
for  the  assertion  that  the  women  of  the  country  are  not  doing 
their  duty  unless  they  have  large  families.  I  wonder  if 
you  know  the  real  reason,  after  all.  Society  and  clubs  are 
held  largely  to  blame,  but  society  really  takes  in  so  few 


APPLIED  IDEALISM 


i8i 


people,  after  all.     I  thought,  when  I  got  married  at  twenty, 
that  it  was  the  proper  thing  to  have  a  family,  and,  as  we 
had  very  little  of  this  world's  goods,  also  thought  it  the 
thing  to  do  all  the  necessary  work  for  them.     I  have  had 
nine  children,  did  all  my  own  work,  including  washing,  iron- 
ing, house-cleaning,  and  the  care  of  the  little  ones  as  they 
came  along,  which  was  about  every  two  years ;   also  sewed 
everything  they  wore,  including  trousers  for  the  boys  and 
caps  and  jackets  for  the  girls  while  little.     I  also  helped 
them  all  in  their  school  work,  and  started  them  in  music,  etc. 
But  as  they  grew  older  I  got  behind  the  times.     I  never  be- 
longed to  a  club  or  a  society  or  lodge,  nor  went  to  any  one's 
house  scarcely  ;   there  wasn't  time.     In  consequence,  I  knew 
nothing  that  was  going  on  in  the  town,  much  less  the  events 
of  the  country,  and  at  the  same  time  my  husband  kept 
growing  in  wisdom  and  knowledge,  from  mixing  with  nien 
and  hearing  topics  of  the  times  discussed.     At  the  beginning 
of  our  married  life  I  had  just  as  quick  a  mind  to  grasp  things 
as  he  did,  and  had  more  school  education,  having  graduated 
from  a  three  years'  high  school.     My  husband  more  and 
more  declined  to  discuss  things  with  me;    as  he  said,  "I 
didn't  know  anything  about  it."     When  I'd  ask,  he'd  say, 
"Oh,  y-u  wouldn't  understand  if  I'd  tell  you."     So  here  I 
am,  at  forty-five  years,  hopelessly  dull  and  uninteresting, 
while  he  can  mix  with  the  brightest  minds  in  the  country  as 
an  equal.     He's  a  strong  Progressive  man,  took  very  active 
part  in  the  late  campaign,  etc.     I  am  also  Progressive,  and 
tried  my  best,  after  so  many  years  of  shut-in  life,  to  grasp 
the  ideas  you  stood  for,  and  read  everything  I  could  find 
during  the  summer  and  fall.     But  I've  been  out  of  touch 
with  people  too  long  now,  and  my  husband  would  much 
rather  go  and  talk  to  some  woman  who  hasn't  had  any 
children,  because  she  knows  things  (I  am  not  specifying  any 
particular  woman).     I   simply  bore  him  to  death  because 
I'm  not  interesting.     Now,  tell  me,  how  was  it  my  fault } 
I  was  only  doing  what  I  thought  was  my  duty.     No  woman 
can  keep  up  with  things  who  never  talks  with  any  one  but 
young  children.     As  soon  as  my  children  grew  up  they  took 
the  same  attitude  as  their  father,  and  frequently  say,  "Oh, 


i82    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

mother  doesn't  know."     They  look  up  to  and  admire  their 
fa  her  because  he's  a  man  of  the  world  and  knows  how  to  aa 

Tnd  r.;    T'  """  •     ?°^""?  '  "'■g'-'  •">'  daughters  now  to  go 
and  raise  large  fam.hes  ?     It  means  by  the  time  you  ha?e 

lou  ^Tnw^"'''  'l^'^''"}  f^"-  them  they  are  all  ashamed  of 
you.  I\ow,  as  a  believer  in  woman's  rights,  do  a  little  talk- 
ing to  the  men  as  to  their  duties  to  their  wivk,  or  else  refrafn 
from  urging  us  women  to  have  children.  I  am  only  one  of 
thousands  of  middle-class  respectable  women  who  give  ^heir 
ives  to  raise  a  nice  family  and  then  who  become  bitter  from 
the  injustice  done  us.  Don't  let  this  go  into  the  wasted 
basket,  but  thmk  it  over.     Yours  respectfully      ^^^ 


My  Dear  Mrs. 


New  York,  January  ii,  1913. 


basket      I    hl^^^^rr  •""''■  ^''L"°u'  SO  into  the  waste-paper 
Wm  I  .         ^^'"^  •'  ^Y  ^"'^  'how  it  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt. 

W  I  you  let  me  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  woman  who  can 

iWesTine''  ^ST,;^  TT''  "°'  "hopelessly  dull  and  un- 
interesting !  If  the  facts  are  as  you  state,  then  I  do  not 
wonder  that  you  feel  bitterly  and  that  you  feel  that  "he 
gravest  kind  of  injustice  has  been  done  you.  I  have  always 
tried  to  insist  to  men  that  they  should  do  their  duty  to  the 
women  even  more  than  the  women  to  them.  Now  I  hardly 
like  to  write  specifically  about  your  husband,  because  you 
might  not  like  it  yourself  It  seems  to  me  almost  incredfble 
hat  any  man  vvho  ,s  the  husband  of  a  woman  who  has  borne 
h.m   nine  children   shou  d   not  feel   that  they  and   he  are 

d^i  d"r?n''    II  ^""^'T^   n^ ""   ''y  '^'''  >'«"   '^^^-  had   nine 
children,  that  you  did  all  your  own  work,  including  washing, 

roning,  house-cleaning,  and  the  care  of  the  little  ones  as 

they  came  along;    that  you  sewed  everything  they  wore 

including  trousers  for  the  boys  and  caps  and  jackets  for  the 

girls  while  little,^  that  you  helped  them  all  in  their  school 

work  and  started  them  in  music;    but  that  as  they  grew 

o  der  you  got  behind  the  times,  that  you  never  belonged  to  a 

U.A^  t'T^'^  °'  ''''^^'''  ""■■  "^^"t  t°  ^">^  o"^'s  house,  as  you 
hardly  had  time  to  do  so;  and  that  in  consequence  your 
husband  outgrew  you,  and  that  your  children  look  up  to 


1^1 


APPLIED   IDEALISM 


183 


him  and  not  to  you  and  feel  that  they  have  outgrown  you. 
If  these  facts  are  so,  you  have  done  a  great  and  wonderful 
work,  and  the  only  explanation  I  can  possibly  give  of  the 
attitude  you  describe  on  the  part  of  your  husband  and  chil- 
dren is  that  they  do  not  understand  what  it  is  that  you  have 
done.  I  emphatically  believe  in  unselfishness,  but  I  also  be- 
lieve that  it  is  a  mistake  to  let  other  people  grow  selfish, 
even  when  the  other  people  arc  husband  and  children. 

Now,  I  suggest  that  you  take  your  letter  to  me,  of  which  I 
send  you  back  a  copy,  and  this  letter,  and  then  select  out  of 
your  family  the  one  with  whom  you  feel  most  sympathy, 
whether  it  is  your  husband  or  one  of  your  children.  Show 
the  two  letters  to  him  or  her,  and  then  have  a  frank  talk  about 
the  matter.  If  any  man,  as  you  say,  becomes  ashamed  of  his 
wife  because  she  has  lost  her  figure  in  bearing  his  children, 
then  that  man  is  a  hound  and  has  every  cause  to  be  ashamed 
of  himself.  I  am  sending  you  a  little  book  called  "Mother," 
by  Kathleen  Xorris,  which  will  give  you  my  views  on  the 
matter.  Of  course  there  are  base  and  selfish  men,  just  as 
there  are,  although  I  believe  in  smaller  number,  base  and 
selfish  women.  Man  and  woman  alike  should  profit  by  the 
teachings  in  such  a  story  as  this  of  "Mother." 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 


Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt. 


January  21,  1913. 


My  dear  Sir  —  Your  letter  came  as  a  surprise,  for  I  wasn't 
expecting  an  answer.  The  next  day  the  book  came,  and  I 
thank  you  for  your  ready  sympathy  and  understanding.  I 
feel  as  though  you  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  would  think  I  was 
hardly  loyal  to  my  husband  and  children  ;  but  knowing  of  no 
other  way  to  bring  the  idea  which  was  so  strong  in  my  mind 
to  your  notice,  I  told  my  personal  story.  If  it  will,  in  a  small 
measure,  be  the  means  of  helping  some  one  else  by  molding 
public  opinion,  through  you,  I  shall  be  content.  You  have 
helped  me  more  than  you  know.  Just  having  you  interested 
is  as  good  as  a  tonic,  and  braces  me  up  till  I  feel  as  though  I 
shall  refuse  to  be  "laid  on  the  shelf."  .  .  .     To  think  that 


i84    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

you'd  bother  to  send  me  a  book.  I  shall  always  treasure  it 
both  for  the  text  of  the  book  and  the  sender.  I  read  it  with 
absorbing  interest.  The  mother  was  so  splendid.  She  was 
ideal.  The  situations  are  so  startlingly  real,  just  like  what 
happens  here  every  day  with  variations. . 

A  narrative  of  facts  is  often  more  convincing  than  a 
homily ;  and  these  two  letters  of  my  correspondent  carry 
their  own  lesson. 

Parenthetically,  let  me  remark  that  whenever  a  man 
thinks  that  he  has  outgrown  the  woman  who  is  his  mate,  he 
will  do  well  carefully  to  consider  whether  his  growth  has  not 
been  downward  instead  of  upward,  whether  the  facts  are  not 
merely  that  he  has  fallen  away  from  his  wife's  standard  of 
refinement  and  of  duty. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE    NEW   YORK    POLICE 

IN  the  spring  of  1895  I  was  appointed  by  Mayor  Strong 
Police  Commissioner,  and  I  served  as  President  of 
the  Police  Commission  of  New  York  for  the  two  fol- 
lowing years.  Mayor  Strong  had  been  elected  Mayor 
the  preceding  fall,  when  the  general  anti-Democratic  wave 
of  that  year  coincided  with  one  of  the  city's  occasional  insur- 
rections of  virtue  and  consequent  turning  out  of  Tammany 
from  municipal  control.  He  had  been  elected  on  a  non- 
partisan ticket  —  usually  (although  not  always)  the  right 
kind  of  ticket  in  municipal  affairs,  provided  it  represents  not 
a  bargain  among  factions  but  genuine  non-partisanship 
with  the  genuine  purpose  to  get  the  right  men  in  control 
of  the  city  government  on  a  platform  which  deals  with  the 
needs  of  the  average  men  and  women,  the  men  and  women 
who  work  hard  and  who  too  often  live  hard.  I  was  ap- 
pointed with  the  distinct  understanding  that  I  was  to  adrnin- 
ister  the  Police  Department  with  entire  disregard  of  partisan 
politics,  and  only  from  the  standpoint  of  a  good  citizen 
interested  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  all  good  citizens. 
My  task,  therefore,  was  really  simple.  Mayor  Strong  had 
already  offered  me  the  Street-Cleaning  Department.  For 
this  work  I  did  not  feel  that  I  had  any  especial  fitness.  I 
resolutely  refused  to  accept  the  position,  and  the  Mayor 
ultimately  got  a  far  better  man  for  his  purpose  in  Colonel 
George  F.  Waring.  The  work  of  the  Police  Department, 
however,  was  in  my  line,  and  I  was  glad  to  undertake  it. 
The  man  who  was  closest  to  me  throughout  my  two 
years  in  the  Police  Department  was  Jacob  Riis.  By  this 
time,  as  I  have  said,  I  was  getting  our  social,  industrial, 
and   political    needs   into   pretty   fair   perspective.     I   was 

i8s 


186    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

still  ignorant  of  the  extent  to  which  big  men  of  great  wealth 
played  a  mischievous  part  in  our  industrial  and  social  life, 


Jacob  A.  Rlis. 

"He  and  I  l(H.kicl  at  life  and  its  problt-ms  froin  substantially  the  same  standpoint.  Our 
ideals  and  principles  ami  purposes,  and  our  beliefs  as  to  the  methods  necessary  to 
realize  them,   were  alike." 

but  I  was  well  awake  to  the  need  of  making  ours  in  good  faith 
both  an  economic  and  an  industrial  as  well  as  a  political 
democracy.     I   already  knew  Jake  Riis,  because  his   book 


THE  NEW  YORK  POLICE 


187 


"How  the  Other  Half  Lives"  had  been  to  me  both  an  enlight- 
enment and  an. inspiration  for  which  I  felt  I  could  never  be 
too  grateful.  Soon  after  it  was  written  I  had  called  at  his 
office  to  tell  him  how  deeply  impressed  I  was  by  the  book, 
and  that  I  wished  to  help  him  in  any  practical  way  to  try 
to  make  things  a  little  better.  I  have  always  had  a  horror 
of  words  that  are  not  translated  into  deeds,  of  speech  that 
does  not  result  in  action  - —  in  other  words,  I  believe  in  real- 
izable ideals  and  in  realizing  them,  in  preaching  what  can 
be  practiced  and  then  in  practicing  it.  Jacob  Riis  had 
drawn  an  indictment  of  the  things  that  were  wrong,  pitifully 
and  dreadfully  wrong,  with  the  tenement  homes  and  the 
tenement  lives  of  our  wage-workers.  In  his  book  he  had 
pointed  out  how  the  city  government,  and  especially  those 
connected  with  the  departments  of  police  and  health,  could 
aid  in  remedying  some  of  the  wrongs. 

As  President  of  the  Police  Board  I  was  also  a  member 
of  the  Health  Board.  In  both  positions  I  felt  that  with 
Jacob  Riis's  guidance  I  would  be  able  to  put  a  goodly  num- 
ber of  his  principles  into  actual  effect.  He  and  I  looked  at 
life  and  its  problems  from  substantially  the  same  standpoint. 
Our  ideals  and  principles  and  purposes,  and  our  beliefs 
as  to  the  methods  necessary  to  realize  them,  were  alike. 
After  the  election  in  1894  I  had  written  him  a  letter  which 
ran  in  part  as  follows  : 

It  is  very  important  to  the  city  to  have  a  business  man's 
Mayor,  but  it  is  more  important  to  have  a  workingman's 
Mayor;  and  I  want  Mr.  Strong  to  be  that  also.  .  .  .  It  is  an 
excellent  thing  to  have  rapid  transit,  but  it  is  a  good  deal 
more  important,  if  you  look  at  matters  with  a  proper  per- 
spective, to  have  ample  playgrounds  in  the  poorer  quarters 
of  the  city,  and  to  take  the  children  off  the  streets  so  as  to 
prevent  them  growing  up  toughs.  In  the  same  way  it  is  an 
admirable  thing  to  have  clean  streets ;  indeed,  it  is  an  essen- 
tial thing  to  have  them;  but  it  would  be  a  better  thing  to 
have  our  schools  large  enough  to  give  ample  accommoda- 
tion to  all  who  should  be  pupils  and  to  provide  them  with 
proper  playgrounds. 


i88    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


And  I  added,  while  expressing  my  regret  that  I  had  not 
been  able  to  accept  the  street-cleaning  cqmmissionership, 
that  "I  would  have  been  delighted  to  smash  up  the  corrupt 
contractors  and  put  the  street-cleaning  force  absolutely 
out  of  the  domain  of  politics." 

This  was  nineteen  years  ago,  but  it  makes  a  pretty  good 
platform  in  municipal  politics  even  to-day  —  smash  corrup- 
tion, take  the  municipal  service  out  of  the  domain  of  poli- 
tics, insist  upon  having  a  Mayor  who  shall  be  a  working- 
man's  Mayor  even  more  than  a  business  man's  Mayor, 
and  devote  all  the  attention  possible  to  the  welfare  of  the 
children. 

Therefore,  as  I  viewed  it,  there  were  two  sides  to  the  work  : 
first,  the  actual  handling  of  the  Police  Department ;  second, 
using  my  position  to  help  in  making  the  city  a  better  place 
in  which  to  live  and  work  for  those  to  whom  the  conditions 
of  life  and  labor  were  hardest.  The  two  problems  were 
closely  connected ;  for  one  thing  never  to  be  forgotten  in 
striving  to  better  the  conditions  of  the  New  York  police 
force  is  the  connection  between  the  standard  of  morals  and 
behavior  in  that  force  and  the  general  standard  of  morals 
and  behavior  in  the  city  at  large.  The  form  of  government 
of  the  Police  Department  at  that  time  was  such  as  to  make 
it  a  matter  of  extreme  difficulty  to  get  good  results.  It 
represented  that  device  of  old-school  American  political 
thought,  the  desire  to  establish  checks  and  balances  so  elab- 
orate that  no  man  ;  hall  have  power  enough  to  do  anything 
very  bad.  In  practice  this  always  means  that  no  man  has 
power  enough  to  do  anything  good,  and  that  what  is  bad 
is  done  anyhow. 

In  most  positions  the  "division  of  powers"  theory  works 
unmitigated  mischief.  The  only  way  to  get  good  service 
is  to  give  somebody  power  to  render  it,  facing  the  fact  that 
power  which  will  enable  a  man  to  do  a  job  well  will  also 
necessarily  enable  him  to  do  it  ill  if  he  is  the  wrong  kind  of 
man.  What  is  normally  needed  is  the  concentration  in  the 
hands  of  one  man,  or  of  a  very  small  body  of  men,  of  ample 
power  to  enable  him  or  them  to  do  the  work  that  is  necessary ; 
and  then  the  devising  of  means  to  hold  these  men  fully 


m 


THE   NEW   YORK   POLICE 


189 


responsible  for  the  exercise  of  that  power  by  the  people. 
This  of  course  means  that,  if  the  people  are  willing  to  see 
power  misused,  it  will  be  misused.  But  it  also  means  that 
if,  as  we  hold,  the  people  are  fit  for  self-government  —  if, 
in  other  words,  our  talk  and  our  institutions  are  not  shams 
—  we  will  get  good  government.  I  do  not  contend  that  my 
theory  will  automatically  bring  good  government.  I  do 
contend  that  it  will  enable  us  to  get  as  good  government 
as  we  deserve,  and  that  the  other  way  will  not. 

The  then  government  of  the  Police  Department  was  so 
devised  as  to  render  it  most  difficult  to  accomplish  anything 
good,  while  the  field  for  intrigue  and  conspiracy  was  limitless. 
There  were  four  Commissioners,  two  supposed  to  belong 
to  one  party  and  two  to  the  other,  although,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  they  never  divided  on  party  lines.  There  was  a  Chief, 
appointed  by  the  Commissioners,  but  whom  they  could  not 
remove  without  a  regular  trial  subject  to  review  by  the 
courts  of  law.  This  Chief  and  any  one  Commissioner  had 
power  to  hold  up  most  of  the  acts  of  the  other  three  Com- 
missioners. It  was  made  easy  for  the  four  Commissioners 
to  come  to  a  deadlock  among  themselves ;  and  if  this  danger 
was  avoided,  it  was  easy  for  one  Commissioner,  by  intrigu- 
ing with  the  Chief,  to  bring  the  other  three  to  a  standstill. 
The  Commissioners  were  appointed  by  the  Mayor,  but  he 
could  not  remove  them  without  the  assent  of  the  Governor, 
who  was  usually  politically  opposed  to  him.  In  the  same 
way  the  Commissioners  could  appoint  the  patrolmen,  but 
they  could  not  remove  them,  save  after  a  trial  which  went 
up  for  review  to  the  courts. 

As  was  inevitable  under  our  system  of  law  procedure, 
this  meant  that  the  action  of  the  court  was  apt  to  be  deter- 
mined by  legal  technicalities.  It  was  possible  to  dismiss  a 
man  from  the  service  for  quite  insufficient  reasons,  and  to 
provide  against  the  reversal  of  the  sentence,  if  the  techni- 
calities of  procedure  were  observed.  But  the  worst  criminals 
were  apt  to  be  adroit  men,  against  whom  it  was  impossible 
to  get  legal  evidence  which  a  court  could  properly  consider 
in  a  criminal  trial  (and  the  mood  of  the  court  might  be  to 
treat  the  case  as  if  it  were  a  criminal  trial),  although  it  was 


I90    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


easy  to  get  evidence  which  would  render  it  not  merely  justi- 
fiable but  necessary  for  a  man  to  remove  them  from  his 
private  employ  —  and  surely  the  public  should  be  as  well 
treated  as  a  private  employer.  Accordingly,  most  of  the 
worst  men  put  out  were  reinstated  by  the  courts  ;  and  when 
the  Mayor  attempted  to  remove  one  of  my  colleagues  who 
made  it  his  business  to  try  to  nullify  the  work  done  by  the 
rest  of  us,  the  Governor  sided  with  the  recalcitrant  Com- 
missioner and  refused  to  permit  his  removal. 

Nevertheless,  an  astounding  quantity  of  work  was  done 
in  reforming  the  force.  VVc  had  a  good  deal  of  power, 
anyhow;  we  exercised  it  to  the  full;  and  we  accomplished 
some  things  by  assuming  the  appearance  of  a  power  which 
we  did  not  really  possess. 

The  first  fight  I  made  was  to  keep  politics  absolutely 
out  of  the  force;  and  not  only  politics,  but  every  kind  of 
improper  favoritism.  Doubtless  in  making  thousands  of 
appointments  and  hundreds  of  promotions  there  were  men 
who  contrived  to  use  influence  of  which  I  was  ignorant. 
But  these  cases  must  have  been  few  and  far  between.  As 
far  as  was  humanly  possible,  the  appointments  and  promo- 
tions were  made  without  regard  to  any  question  except  the 
fitness  of  the  man  and  the  needs  of  the  service.  As  Civil 
Service  Commissioner  I  had  been  instructing  heads  of 
departments  and  bureaus  how  to  get  men  appointed  without 
regard  to  politics,  and  assuring  them  that  by  following  our 
methods  they  would  obtain  first-class  results.  As  Police 
Commissioner  I  was  able  practically  to  apply  my  own  teach- 
ings. 

The  appointments  to  the  police  force  were  made  as  I  have 
described  in  the  last  chapter.  We  paid  not  the  slightest 
attention  to  a  man's  politics  or  creed,  or  where  he  was  born, 
so  long  as  he  was  an  American  citizen ;  and  on  an  average 
we  obtained  far  and  away  the  best  men  that  had  ever  come 
into  the  Police  Department.  It  was  of  course  very  difficult 
at  first  to  convince  both  the  politicians  and  the  people  that 
we  really  meant  what  we  said,  and  that  every  one  really 
would  have  a  fair  trial.  There  had  been  in  previous  years 
the  most  widespread  and  gross  corruption  in  connection 


i 


THE  NEW  YORK   POLICE 


191 


with  every  activity  in  the  Police  Department,  and  there 
had  been  a  regular  tariff  for  appointments  and  promotions. 
Many  powerful  politicians  and  many  corrupt  outsiders 
believed  that  in  some  way  or  other  it  would  still  be  possible 
to  secure  appointments  by  corrupt  and  improper  methods, 
and  many  good  citizens  felt  the  same  conviction.  I  endeav- 
ored to  remove  the  impression  from  the  minds  of  both  sets  of 
people  by  giving  the  widest  publicity  to  what  we  were  doing 
and  how  we  were  doing  it,  by  making  the  whole  process 
open  and  aboveboard,  and  by  making  it  ev'dent  that  we 
would  probe  to  the  bottom  every  charge  of  corruption. 

For  instance,  I  received  visits  at  one  time  from  a  Catholic 
priest,  and  at  another  time  from  a  Methodist  clergyman, 
who  had  parishoncrs  who  wished  to  enter  the  police  force, 
but  who  did  not  believe  they  could  get  in  save  by  the  pay- 
ment of  money  or  through  political  pressure.  The  priest 
was  running  a  temperance  lyceum  in  connection  with  his 
church,  and  he  wished  to  know  if  there  would  be  a  chance 
for  some  of  the  young  men  who  belonged  to  that  lyceum. 
The  Methodist  clergyman  came  from  a  little  patch  of  old 
native  America  which  by  a  recent  extension  had  been  taken 
within  the  limits  of  the  huge,  polyglot,  pleasure  loving  city. 
His  was  a  small  church,  most  of  the  members  being  ship- 
wrights, mechanics,  and  sailormen  from  the  local  coasters. 
In  each  case  I  assured  my  visitor  that  we  wanted  on  the  force 
men  of  the  exact  type  which  he  said  he  could  furnish.  I 
also  told  him  that  I  was  as  anxious  as  he  was  to  find  out  if 
there  was  any  improper  work  being  done  in  connection  with 
the  examinations,  and  that  I  would  like  him  to  get  four  or 
five  of  his  men  to  take  the  examinations  without  letting  me 
know  their  names.  Then,  whether  the  men  failed  or  suc- 
ceeded, he  and  I  would  take  their  papers  and  follow  them 
through  every  stage  so  that  we  could  tell  at  once  whether 
they  had  been  either  improperly  favored  or  improperly 
discriminated  against.  This  was  accordingly  done,  and  in 
each  case  my  visitor  turned  up  a  few  weeks  later,  his  face 
wreathed  in  smiles,  to  say  that  his  candidates  had  passed 
and  that  everything  was  evidently  all  straight.  During 
my  two  years  as  President  of  the  Commission  I  think  I 


192    THKODORF.    ROOSKVEl.T  -  AN    AirOBKX.RAPHY 


appointed  a  d<izi'n  or  fifteen  nicmlHTs  of  that  little  Methodist 
conj;rejj:ation,  and  certainly  twite  that  number  of  men  from 
the  temperance  lyceum  of  the  Catholic  church  in  question. 
They  were  all  men  of  the  very  type  I  most  wished  to  sec 

en  the  force  men 
of  strong  physique 
and  resolute  temper, 
sober,  self-respect- 
ing, self-reliant,  with 
a  stronjj  wish  to  im- 
prove themselves. 

Occasionally  I 
would  myself  pick 
out  a  man  and  tell 
him  to  lake  the  ex- 
amination. Thus 
one  evening  I  went 
down  to  speak  in 
the  Bowery  at  the 
Young  Men's  Insti- 
tute, a  branch  of  the 
Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Association,  at 
the  request  of  Mr. 
Cleveland  H.  Dodge. 
While  there  he  told 
me  he  wished  to  show 
me  a  young  Jew  who 
had  recently,  by  an 
exhibition  of  marked 
pluck  and  bodily 
prowess,  saved  some 
women  and  children 
from  a  burningbuild- 


Orio  Raphael. 

AyciunK  Jew  who  had  reiotilly.  hy  an  exhihition  of 
marked  iiluik  and  bixlily  prowi-is.  saved  some  women 
and  children  from  a  burnint;  liuildinK." 


ing.  The  young  Jew,  whose  name  was  Otto  Raphael,  was 
brought  up  to  see  me;  a  powerful  fellow,  with  good-humored, 
intelligt.it  face.  I  asked  him  about  his  education,  and  told  him 
to  try  the  examination.  He  did,  passed,  was  appointed,  and 
made  an  admirable  officer ;  and  he  and  all  his  family,  wherever 


11  IK   Ni:U    YORK    POLICK 


•93 


they  may  dwill,  have  bi-t-n  close  friends  of  mine  ever  since. 
Otto  Raphael  was  a  genuine  Mast  Sider.  Ho  and  I  were 
both  "straiKht  Ni-vv  York,"  to  use  the  vernacular  of  our 
native  city  To  show  our  community  of  feeling  and  our 
grasp  of  the  facts  of  lifi-,  |  niav  mention  that  we  were  almost 
the  only  men  it)  the  Police  Department  who  picked  Fitz- 
simtiions  as  a  winner  against  Corbett.  Otto's  parents  had 
come  ()\er  from  Russia,  and  not  only  in  social  standing  but 
in  pay  a  policeman's  position  meant  everything  to  him. 
It  enabled  Otto  to  educate  his  little  brothers  and  sisters 
who  had  been  born  in  this  country,  and  to  bring  over  from 
Russia  two  or  three  kinsfolk  who  had  perforce  been  left 
behind. 

Rather  curiously,  it  was  by  no  means  as  easy  to  keep 
politics  and  corruption  out  of  the  promotions  as  out  of  the 
entrance  examinations.  'H  -vas  because  I  could  take 
complete  charge  of  the  entra  e  examinations  myself:  and, 
moreover,  they  were  largely  automatic.  In  protrotions, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  prime  element  was  the  record  and 
capacity  of  the  officer,  and  for  this  we  had  largely  to  rely 
upon  the  judgment  of  the  man's  immediate  superiors.  This 
doubtless  meant  that  in  certain  cases  that  judgment  was 
given  for  improper  reasons. 

Howevei,  there  were  cases  where  I  could  act  on  personal 
knowledge.  One  thing  that  we  did  was  to  endeavor  to  recog- 
nize gallantry.  We  did  not  have  to  work  a  revolution  in 
the  force  as  to  courag  •  in  the  wav  that  we  had  to  work  a 
revolution  in  honesty.  They  had  always  been  brave  in 
deahng  with  riotous  and  violent  criminals.  But  they  had 
gradually  become  very  corrupt.  Our  great  work,  therefore, 
vvas  the  stamping  out  of  dishonesty,  and  this  work  we  did 
thoroughly,  so  far  as  the  ridiculous  bi-partisan  law  under 
which  the  Department  was  administered  would  permit. 
But  we  were  anxious  that,  while  stamping  out  what  was 
u-ui"  ^^^  ^o^cc,  we  should  keep  and  improve  what  was  gnnd. 
VVhile  warring  on  dishonesty,  we  made  every  effort  to 
increase  efficiency.  It  has  unfortunately  been  shown  by 
sad  experience  that  at  times  a  police  organization  which  is 
tree  from  the  taint  of  corruption  mav  yet  show  itself  weak 


194    THKODORK    R()OSK\  Kl/I'       .\\    AITOBIOCRAPIIV 

ill  some  great  crisis  or  unable  to  deal  vvitli  the  more  dan- 
gerous kinds  of  criminals.  'I'his  we  were  determined  to 
prevent. 

Our  efforts  were  crowned  with  entire  success.  The 
improvement  in  the  efficiency  of  the  force  went  hand  in 
hand  with  the  improvement  in  its  honesty.  The  men  in 
uniform  and  the  men  in  plain  clothes  -  the  detectives 
did  better  v.ork  than  ever  before.  The  aggregate  of  crimes 
where  punishment  followed  the  commission  of  the  crime 
increased,  while  the  aggregate  of  crimes  where  the  criminal 
escaped  punishment  decreased.  Kvery  discredited  poli- 
tician, every  sensational  newspaper,  and  everv  timid  fool  who 
could  be  scared  by  clamor  was  against  us.  All  three  classes 
strove  by  every  means  in  their  power  to  show  that  in  making 
the  force  honest  we  had  impaired  its  efficiencv  ;  and  by  their 
utterances  they  tended  to  bring  about  the  very  condition  of 
things  against  which  they  professed  to  protest.  But  we 
went  steadily  along  the  path  we  had  marked  out.  The 
fight  was  hard,  and  there  was  plentv  of  worry  and  anxiety, 
but  we  won.  I  was  appointed  in  May,  1895.  In  February' 
1897,  three  months  before  I  resigned  to  become  Assistain 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  the  Judge  who  charged  the  Oand 
Jury  of  New  ^  ork  County  was  able  to  congratulate  them  on 
the  phenomenal  decrease  in  crime,  especiallv  of  the  violent 
sort.  This  decrease  was  steady  during  the  two  years.  The 
police,  after  the  reform  policy  was  thoroughh'  tried,  proved 
more  successful  than  ever  before  in  protecting  life  and  prop- 
erty and  in  putting  down  crime  and  criminal  vice. 

The  part  played  by  the  recognition  and  reward  of  actual 
personal  prowess  among  the  members  of  the  police  force  in 
producing  this  state  of  affairs  was  appreciable,  though  there 
were  many  other  factors  that  combined  to  bring  about  the 
betternient.  The  immense  improvement  in  discipline  by 
punishing  all  offenders  without  mercy,  no  matter  how  great 
their  political  or  personal  influence';  the  resolute  warfare 
against  every  kind  of  criminal  who  had  hitherto  been  able 
corruptly  to  purchase  protection;  the  prompt  recognition 
of  ability  even  where  it  was  entirely  unconnected  with  per- 
sonal prowess  -  all  these  were  elements  wliich  had  enormous 


THE   NEW    YORK   POLICE 


195 


weight  in  producing  the  change.  Mere  cour.  ^e  and  daring, 
and  the  rewarding  of  courage  and  daring,  cannot  supply 
the  lack  of  discipline,  of  ability,  of  honesty.  But  they  are 
of  vital  consequence,  nevertheless.  No  police  force  is  worth 
anything  if  its  members  are  not  intelligent  and  honest ; 
bu*.  neither  is  it  worth  anything  unless  its  members  are  brave, 
hardy,  and  well  disciplined. 

We  showed  recognition  of  daring  and  of  personal  prowess 
in  two  ways  :  first,  by  awarding  a  medal  or  a  certificate  in 
remembrance  of  the  deed;  and,  second,  by  giving  it  weight 
in  making  any  promotion,  especially  to  the  lower  grades. 
In  the  higher  grades  -  in  all  promotions  above  that  of  ser- 
geant, for  instance  —  resolute  and  daring  courage  cannot 
normally  be  considered  as  a  factor  of  determining  weight 
in  making  promotions  ;  rather  is  it  a  quality  the  lack  of  which 
unfits  a  man  for  promotion.  For  in  the  higher  places  we 
must  assume  the  existence  of  such  a  quality  in  any  fit  can- 
didate, and  must  make  the  promotion  with  a  view  to  the 
man's  energy,  executive  capacity,  and  power  of  command. 
In  the  lower  grades,  however,  marked  gallantry  should 
always  be  taken  into  account  in  deciding  among  different 
candidates   for  any  given  place. 

During  our  two  years'  service  we  found  it  necessary  over 
a  hundred  times  to  single  out  men  for  special  mention  because 
of  soine  feat  of  heroism.  The  heroism  usually  took  one  of 
four  forms  :  saving  somebody  from  drowning,  saving  some- 
body from  a  burning  building,  stopping  a  runaway  team, 
or  arresting  some  violent  lawbreaker  under  exceptional 
circumstances.  To  illustrate  our  method  of  action,  I  will 
take  two  of  the  first  promotions  made  after  I  became  Com- 
missioner. One  case  was  that  of  an  old  fellow,  a  veteran 
of  the  Civil  War,  who  was  at  the  time  a  roundsman.  I  hap- 
pened to  notice  one  day  that  he  had  saved  a  woman  from 
drowning,  and  had  him  summoned  so  that  I  might  look  into 
the  matter.  The  old  fellow  brought  up  his  record  before 
me,  and  showed  not  a  little  nervousness  antl  agitation; 
for  it  appeared  that  he  had  grown  gra\  in  the  service,  had 
performed  feat  after  feat  of  heroism,  but  had  no  political 
backing  of  any  account.     No  heed  had  ever  been  paid  him. 


196    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

He  was  one  of  the  quiet  men  who  attend  solely  to  duty,  and 
although  a  Grand  Army  man,  he  had  never  sought  to  use 
influence  of  any  kind.     Now,  at  last,  he  thought  there  was 
a  chance  for  him.     He  had  been  twenty-two  years  on  the 
force,  and  during  that  time  had  saved  some  twenty-five  per- 
sons from  death  by  drowning,  varying  the  performance  two 
or  three  times  by  saving  persons'  f.om  burning  buildings. 
Twice  Congress  had  passed  laws  especially  to  empower  the 
then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  John  Sherman,  to  give  him 
a    medal   for   distinguished   gallarttry    in    saving   life.     The 
Life-Saving  Society  had  also  given  him  its  medal,  and  so  had 
the  Police  Department.     There  was  not  a  complaint  in  all 
his  record  against  him  for  any  infraction  of  dutv,  and  he 
was  sober  and  trustworthy.     He  was  entitled  to  his  pro- 
motion; and  he  got  it,  there  und  then.      It  may  be  worth 
mentioning  that  he  kept  on  saving  life  after  he  was  given  his 
sergeantcv.      On  October  21,  1896,  he  again  rescued  a  man 
from  drowning.     It  was  at  night,  nobodx-  else  was  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  the  dock  from  which  he  jumped  was  in 
absolute  darkness,  and   he  was  ten   minutes  in  the  water, 
which  was  very  cold.     He  was  fifly-fi\-e  years  old  when  he- 
saved  this  man.      It  was  the  twenty-ninth  person  whose  life 
he  had  saved  during  his  twenty-three  years'  service  in  the 
Department. 

The  other  man  was  a  patrolman  whom  we  promoted  to 
roundsman  for  activity  in  catching  a  burglar  under  rather 
peculiar  circumstances.      I  happened  to  note  his  getting  a 
burglar  one  week.     Apparently  he  had  fallen  into  the  habit, 
for  he  got  another  next  week.     In  the  latter  case  the  burglar 
escaped  from  the  house  soon  after  midnight,  and  ran  away 
toward    Park   Avenue,    with    the   policeman    in    hot   chase. 
The  New  \ork  Central  Railroad  runs  under  Park  Avenue, 
and  there  is  a  succession  of  openings  in  the  top  of  the  tunnel.' 
Finding  that  the  policeman  was  gaining  on  him,  the  burglar 
took   a   desperate   chance   and    leaped    down   one  of   these 
openings,  at  the  risk  of  breaking  his  neck.     Now  the  burglar 
was  running  for  his  liberty,  and  it  was  the  part  of  wisdom 
for  him  to  imperil  life  or  limb;  but  the  policeman  was  merelv 
doing  his  duty,  and  nobody  could  have  blamed  him  for  not 


^i 


THK   NEW   YORK   POLICE 


197 


takine  the  jump.  However,  he  jumped ;  and  in  tins  partic- 
ular case  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  heavy  upon  the  unright- 
eous. The  burglar  had  the  breath  knocked  out  of  him  and 
the  "cop"  didn't.  When  his  victim  could  walk,  the  orticer 
trotted  him  around  to  the  station-house ;  and  a  week  after 
I  had  the  officer  up  and  promoted  him,  for  he  was  sober, 
trustworthy,  and  strictly  attentive  to  duty. 

Now  I  think  that  any  decent  man  of  reasonable  intelligence 
will  agree  that  we  were  quite  right  in  promoting  men  in 
cases  like  these,  and  quite  right  in  excluding  politics  from 
promotions.     Vet  it  was  because  of  our  consistently  acting 
in  this  manner,  resolutely  warring  on  dishonesty  and  on  that 
peculiar  fo     1  of  baseness  which  masquerades  as  "practical 
politics,  anu  steadilv  refusing  to  pay  heed  to  any  considera- 
tion except  the  good  of  the  service  and  the  city,  and  the 
merits  of  the  men  themselves,  that  we  drew  down  upon  our 
heads   the  bitter  and   malignant  animosity  of  the  bread- 
and-butter  spoils  politicians.     They  secured  the  reped  c 
the   Civil    Service    Law   by    the    State    Legislature,      ihey 
attempted  and  almost  succeeded  in  the  eflFort  to  legislat> 
us  out  of  office.     They  joined  with  the  baser  portion  of  the 
sensational  press  in  every  species  of  foul,  indecent  falsehood 
and  slander  as  to  what  we  were  doing.     They  attempted 
to  seduce  or  frighten  us  by  every  species  of  intrigue  and 
cajolery,  of  promise  of  political  reward  and  threat  of  political 
punishment.     They  failed   in   their  purpose.      I   believe  in 
political  organizations,  and  I  believe  in  practical  politics. 
If  a  man  is  not  practical,  he  is  of  no  use  anywhere.     But 
wlien  politicians  treat  practical  politics  as  foul  politics,  and 
when  thev  turn  what  ought  to  be  a  necessary  ana  usefu 
political  organization  into  a  machine   run  by   professional 
spoilsmen  of  low  morality  in  their  own  interest,  then  it  is 
time  to  drive  the  politician  from  public  life,  and  either  to 
mend  or  destroy  the  machine,  according  as  the  necessity  may 

determine.  1       j 

Wc  promoted  to  roundsman  a  patrolman,  with  an  already 
excellent  record,  for  gallantry  shown  in  a  fray  which  resulted 
in  the  death  of  his  antagonist.  He  was  after  a  gang  of 
toughs  who  had  just  waylaid,  robbed,  and  beaten  a  man. 


i<>s      IHKODORK    R()()SK\i:i;i"       AX    Al'IOBlOCRAIMIV 


'I 


Tlir)  scalliic'J  aiui  lie  [)ursia'd  I  In-  liiigk'adfi'.  Running 
liard,  lit-  gained  on  his  man,  wlicrciipon  the  latter  suddenly 
turned  and  fired  full  in  his  face.  The  officer  already  had  his 
revolver  drawn,  and  the  two  shots  rang  out  almost  together. 
The  policeman  was  within  a  fraction  of  death,  for  the  bullet 
from  his  opponent's  pistol  went  through  his  helmet  and  just 
broke  the  skin  of  his  head.  His  own  aim  was  truer,  and  the 
man  he  was  after  fell  dead,  shot  through  the  heart.  I 
may  explain  that  I  have  nnx  the  slightest  sympathy  with  any 
policy  which  tends  to  put  the  policeman  at  the  mercy  of  a 
tough,  or  which  deprives  him  of  efficient  weapons.  While 
Police  Commissioner  we  punished  any  brutality  b}-  the 
police  with  ;  uch  immediate  severit\-  that  all  cases  f)f  brutality 
practically  came  to  an  end.  \o  decent  citizen  had  anything 
to  fear  from  the  police  during  the  two  years  of  my  service. 
But  we  consistently  encouraged  the  police  to  prove  that  the 
violent  criminal  wiio  endeavored  to  molest  them  or  to  resist 
arrest,  or  to  interfere  with  them  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duty,  was  himself  in  grave  jeopard)  ;  and  we  had  every 
"gang"  broken  up  and  the  members  punished  with  whatever 
severit}-  was  necessary.  Of  course  where  possible  the  officer 
merely  crippled  the  criminal  who  was  violent. 

One  of  the  things  that  we  did  while  in  office  was  to  train 
the  men  in  the  use  of  the  pistol.  A  school  of  pistol  practice 
was  established,  and  the  marksmanship  of  the  force  was  won- 
derfull\-  improved.  The  man  in  charge  of  the  school  was  a 
roundsman,  Petty,  whom  we  promoted  to  sergeant.  He 
was  one  of  the  champion  revolver  shots  of  the  country,  and 
could  hit  just  abf)ut  where  he  aimed.  Twice  he  was  forced 
to  fire  at  criminals  who  resisted  arrest,  and  in  each  case  he 
hit  his  man  in  the  arm  or  leg,  simply  stopping  him  without 
danger  to  his  life. 

In  .May,  1S96,  a  number  of  burglaries  occurred  far  uptown, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  One  Hundred  and  Fift_\-sixtii  Street 
and  I'nion  Avenue.  Two  officers  were  sent  out  each  night 
to  patrol  the  streets  in  plain  clothes.  About  two  o  clock 
ori  the  morning  of  May  8  they  caught  a  glimpse  of  two  men 
loitering  about  a  large  corner  house,  and  determined  to  make 
them  explain  their  actions.      In  order  to  cut  off  their  escape. 


i 


THE   NEW   \ORK   POLICE 


199 


one  officer  went  down  one  street  and  one  the  other.     The 
first  officer,  whose  name  was  Ryan,  found  the  two  men  at  the 
gateway  of  the  side  entrance  of  the  house,  and  hailed  to 
know   what    they    were    doing.     Without   answering,    they 
turned  and  ran  toward  I'rospect  Avenue,  with  Ryan  in  close 
pursuit.     After  running  about  one  hundred  feet,  one  of  them 
turned  and  fired  three  shots  at  Ryan,  but  failed  to  hit  him. 
The  two  then  separated,  and  the  man  who  had  done  the 
shooting  escaped.     The  other  man,  whose  name  proved  to 
be  O'Connor,  again  took  to  his  heels,  with  Ryan  still  after 
him ;  they  turned  the  corner  and  met  the  other  officer,  whose 
name  was  Reid,  running  as  hard  as  he  could  toward  the  shoot- 
ing.    When  O'Connor  saw  himself  cut  off  by  Reid,  he  fired 
at  his  new  foe,  the  bullet  cutting  Reid's  overcoat  on  the  left 
shoulder.     Reid  promptly  fired  in  return,  his  bullet  going 
^nto  O'Connor's  neck  and  causing  him  to  turn  a  complete 
..umersault.     The  two  officers  then  cared  for  their  prisoner 
until   the   ambulance   arrived,  when    he  was    taken    to  the 
hospital  and  pronounced  mortally  wounded.     His  companion 
was  afterward  caught,  and  they  turned  out  to  be  the  very 
burglars  for  whom  Reid  and  Ryan  had  been  on  the  lookout. 
In  December,  1896,  one  of  our  officers  was  shot.     A  row 
occurred  in  a  restaurant,  which  ended  in  two  young  toughs 
drawing  their  revolvers  and  literally  running  amuck,  shoot- 
ing two  or  three  men.     A  policeman,  attracted  by  the  noise, 
ran  up  and  seized  one  of  them,  whereupon  the  other  shot 
him   in    the    mouth,    wounding    him    badly.     Nevertheless, 
the  officer  kept  iiis  prisoner  and  carried  him  to  the  station- 
house.      The  tough  who  had  done  the  shooting  ran  out  and 
was  seized  by  another  f)fficer.     The  tough  fired  at  him,  the 
bullet  passing  through   the  officer's  overcoat,  but   he  was 
promptly    knocked    down,    disarmed,    and    brought    to   the 
station-house.     In    this    case    neither    policeman    used    his 
revolver,  and  each  brought  in  his  man,  .-.Ithough  the  latter 
was  arn^ed  and  resisted  arrest,  one  of  the  officers  taking  in 
his  prisoner  after  having  been  himself  severely   wounded. 
A  lamentable  feature  of  the  c-icc  was  that  this  same  officer 
was  a  man  who,  though  capabk-  of  great  gallantry,  vvas  also 
gi\eii   t(i  sliirkiiig  liis  work,  and  we  wvv-  finall\    obliged  to 


l! 


THE   NEW    YORK   POLICE 


20 1 


dismiss  him  from  the  force,  after  passing  over  two  or  three 
glaring  misdeeds  in  view  of  his  record  for  courage 
^VVe  promoted   another  man  on   account  of  finding  out 
accidentally  that  he  had  performed  a  notable  feat,  which  he 
had  forborne  even  to  mention,  so  that  his  name  never  came 
on  the  roll  of  honor.     Late  at  night,  while  patrolling  a  lonely 
part  of  his  post,  he  came  upon  three  young  toughs  who  had 
turned  highwaymen  and  were  robbing  a  peddler      He  ran 
at  once  with  his  night-stick,  whereupon  the  toughs  showed 
fieht  and  one  of  them  struck  at  him  with  a  bludgeon,  break- 
ing his  left  hand.     The  officer,  however,  made  such  good  use 
of  his  night-stick  that  he  knocked  down  two  of  his  assailants, 
whereupon  the  third  ran  away,  and  he  brought  both  of  his 
prisoners  to  the  station-house.     Then  he  went  round  co  the 
hospital,   had   his  broken  hand   set   m  plaster,  and   actu- 
ally reported  for  duty  at  the  next  tour,  without  bsing  one 
hour.     He  was  a  quiet  fellow,  with  a  record  free  from  com- 
plaints, and  we  made  him  roundsman. 

The  mounted  squad  have,  of  course,  many  opportunities 
to  distinguish  themselves  in  stopping  runaways.  In  Alay, 
i8q;,  a  mounted  policeman  named  Heyer  succeeded  m  stop- 
ping a  runaway  at  Kingsbridge  under  rather  noteworthy 
circumstances.  Two  men  were  driving  in  a  buggy,  when  the 
horse  stumbled,  and  in  recovering  himself  broke  the  head- 
stall, so  that  the  bridle  fell  off.  The  horse  was  a  spin  ed 
trotter,  and  at  once  ran  away  at  full  speed.  Heyer  saw  the 
occurrence,  and  followed  at  a  run.  \Vhen  he  got  alongside 
the  runawav  he  seized  him  by  the  forelock  guided  him  dex- 
terously over  the  bridge,  preventing  him  from  running  into 
the  numerous  wagons  that  were  on  the  road,  and  finally 
forced  him  up  a  hill  and  into  a  wagon-shed.  Three  months 
later  this  same  officer  saved  a  man  from  drowning. 

The  members  of  the  bicycle  squad,  which  was  established 
shortlv  after  we  took  office,  soon  grew  to  show  not  only 
extraordinary  proficiency  on  the  wheel,  but  extraordinary 
daring.  Thev  frequentlv  stopped  runaways,  wheeling  along- 
side of  them;  and  grasping  the  horses  while  gouig  at  full 
speed ;  and,  what  was  even  more  leniarKable,  they  man- 
aged not  only  to  overtake  but  to  jump  into  the  vehicle 


U  f 


i 


'•L. 


202     THKODORK    ROOSKN  KI.T- -  A\    ALTOBIOCRAPHV 

and  capture,  on  two  or  three  different  occasions,  men  who 
were  guilty  of  reciiless  driving,  and  who  fought  violently 
in  resisting  arrest.  They  were  picked  men,  being  young 
and  active,  and  any  feat  of  daring  which  could  be  accom- 
plished on  the  wheel  they  were  certain  to  accomplish 

1  hrce  of  the  best  riders  of  the  bicycle  squad,  whose  names 
and  records  happen  to  occur  to  me,  were  men  of  the  three 
ethnic  strains  most  strongly  represented  in  the  New  York 
police  force,  being  respectivel\-  of  native  American,  German, 
and    Irish   parentage. 

The  (Jerman  was  a  man  of  enornKnis  power,  and  he 
was  able  to  stop  each  of  the  manv  runaways  he  tackled 
without  losing  his  wheel.  Choosing  his  time,'  he  would  get 
alongside  the  horse  and  seize  the  bit  in  his  left  hand,  keep- 
ing his  right  on  the  crossbar  of  the  wheel.  By  degrees  he 
then  got  the  animal  under  control.  He  never  failed  to 
stop  It,  and  he  never  lost  his  wheel.  He  also  never  failed 
to  overtake  any  "scorcher,"  although  manv  of  these  were 
professional  riders  who  deliberately  violated  the  law  to  see 
if  they  could  not  get  away  from  him;  for  th'-  wheelmen 
soon  get  to  know  the  oi'ticers  whose  beats  they  cross. 

The  ''ankee,  though  a  tall,  powerful  man  and  a  very  good 
rider,  scarcely  came  up  to  the  (}erman  in  either  respect- 
he  possessed  exceptional  ability,  however,  as  well  as  excep- 
tional nerve  and  coolness,  and  he  also  won  his  promotion 
He  stopped  about  as  manj-  runawavs ;  but  when  the  horse 
was  really  panic-stricken  he  usuallv  had  to  turn  his  wheel 
loose,  gittmg  a  firm  grip  on  the  horse's  reins  and  then  kick- 
ing Ins  wheel  so  that  it  would  fall  out  of  the  wav  of  injurv 
trom  the  wagon.     On  one  occasion   he  had  a  fight  with  a 
drunken  and  reckless  driver  who  was  urging  to  top  speed 
a  spirited  horse.     He  first  got  hold  of  the  horse,  whereupon 
the  driver  lashed  both  him  and  the  beast,  and  the  animal, 
ah;cad.v    mad    with    terror,    could     not    be    stopped.      The 
officer  had  of  course  kicked  away  his  wheel  at  the  beginning 
and  after  being  dragged  along  for  some  distance  he  let  go 
the  beast  and  made  a  grab  at  the  wagon.     The  driver  hit 
him  with  his  whip,  but  he  managed  to  get  in,  and  after  a 
vigorous  tussle  overcame  his  man,  and  disposed  of  him  bv 


IIIK   Nl.W    YORK    POMCK 


20.; 


>,'rttiiijj  liiin  ilowii  ami  sitliiin  on  liiin.  'I'liis  lift  liis  hands 
free  for  tlu-  rt-ins.  By  degrees  he  g<jt  ihe  liorsc  under  con- 
trol, and  drove  the  wagon  round  to  the  station-house,  still 
sitting  on  his  victim.  "I  jounced  up  and  down  on  him  to 
keep  him  quiet  when  he  turned  ugly,"  he  remarked  to  me 
parenthetically.  Having  disposed  of  the  wagon,  he  took 
the  man  round  to  the  court,  and  on  the  way  the  prisoner 
suddenly  sprang  on  him  and  tried  to  throttle  him.  Con- 
vinced at  last  that  patience  had  ceased  to  be  a  virtue,  he 
quieted  his  assailant  with  a  smash  on  the  head  that  took  all 
the  fight  out  of  him  until  he  was  brought  before  the  judge 
and  fined.  Like  the  other  "bicycle  cops,"  this  officer  made 
a  number  of  arrests  of  criminals,  such  as  thieves,  highway- 
men, and  the  like,  in  addition  to  his  natural  prey  —  scorch- 
ers,  runaways,  and   reckless  drivers. 

The  third  member  of  the  trio,  a  tall,  sinewy  man  \yith 
flaming  red  hair,  which  rather  added  to  the  terror  hv  inspired 
in  evil-doers,  was  usually  stationed  in  a  tough  part  of  the 
city,  where  there  was  a  tendency  to  crimes  of  violence, 
and  incidentally  an  occasional  desire  to  harass  wheelmen. 
The  ofiicer  was  as  good  off  his  wheel  as  on  it,  and  he  speedily 
established  perfect  order  cm  his  beat,  being  always  willing 
to  "take  chances"  in  getting  his  man.  He  was  no  respecter 
of  persons,  and  when  it  became  his  duty  to  arrest  a  wealthy 
man  for  persistently  refusing  to  have  his  carriage  lamps 
lighted  af.er  nightfall,  he  brought  him  in  with  the  same  indif- 
ference that  he  displayed  In  arresting  a  street-corner  tough 
who  had  thrown  a  brick  at  a  wheelman. 

Occasionalh'  a  policeman  would  perform  work  which  ordi- 
narily comes  within  the  domain  of  the  fireman.  In  No- 
vember, 1896,  ai.  oflficer  who  had  previously  saved  a  man  from 
death  by  drowning  added  to  his  record  by  saving  five  persons 
from  burning.  He  was  at  the  time  asleep,  when  he  was 
aroused  by  a  fire  in  a  house  a  few  doors  a  way.  Running 
over  the  roofs  of  the  adjoining  houses  until  he  reached  the 
burning  building,  he  found  that  on  the  fourth  floor  the 
flames  had  cut  off  all  exit  from  an  apartment  in  which  there 
were  four  women,  two  of  them  over  fifty,  and  one  of  the 
others  with  a  si.\-months-old  baby.     The  oflRcer  ran  down 


204   'niiioDORK  R(K)si:\  i:i;i-     an  aitohkkjraphv 


'■L- 


t<>  till-  adjoininj;  house,  broke  open   the  door  of  the  apart- 
ineiil   on  the  same  Hoor       the  foiirlli        and  erept  out  on 
the  coping,  U-ss  than  three  inches  witii,  that  ran  from  one 
house  to  the  other.     Being  a  large  and  verv  powerful  and 
active  man,  he  managed  to  keep  hold  of  the  casing  of  the 
wmdow  with  one  hand,  and  with  the  other  to  reach  to  the 
window  of  the  apartment  where  the  women  and  child  were. 
The    firemen    appeared,    and    stretched    a    net    underneath. 
I  he  crowd  that   was  looking  on  suddenly  became  motion- 
less and  silent.     Then,  one  by  one,  he  drew  the  women  out 
of  their  window,  and,  holding  them  tight  against  the  wall, 
passed  them  into  the  other  window.     The  exertion  in  such 
an  attitude  was  great,  and  he  strained  himself  badly  ;  but  he 
possessed  a  practical  mind,  and  as  soon  as  the  women  were 
saved  he  began  a  prompt  investigation  of  the  cause  of  the 
fire,  and  arrested  two  men  whose  carelessness,  as  was  after- 
ward proved,  caused  it. 

Now  and  then  a  man,  though  a  brave  man,  proved  to  be 
slack  or  stupid  or  vicious,  and  we  could  make  nothing  out 
of  him;  but   hardihood   and   courage  were  qualities   upon 
which   we  insisted   and   which   we   rewarded.     Whenever  I 
see  the  police  force  attacked  and  vilified,  I  always  remember 
my  associati(Mi  with  it.     The  cases  I  have  given  above  are 
merely  instances  chosen  almost  at  random  among  hundreds 
of  others.     Men  such  as  those  I  have  mentioned  have  the 
right  stuff  in  them  !     [f  they  go  wrong,  the  trouble  is  with 
the  system,  and  therefore  with  us,  the  citizens,  for  permit- 
ting the  system  tf)  go  unchanged.     The  conditions  of  New 
\ork  life  are  such  as  to  make  the  police  problem  therein 
more  difficult  than  in  any  other  of  the  world's  great  capi- 
tals.     I  am  often  asked  if  policemen  are  honest.      I  believe 
that  the  great  majority  of  them  want  to  be  honest  and  will 
be  honest  whenever  they  arc  given  the  chance.     The  New 
\ork  police  force  is  a   body  thoroughly   representative  of 
the  great  city  itself.     As  I  have  said  above,  the  predominant 
ethnic  strains  in  it  are,  first,  the  men  of  Irish  birth  nr  parent- 
age,  and,   following  these,   the   native  Americans,   usually 
from  the  country  districts,  and  the   men  of  German   birth 
or  parentage.     There  are  also  Jews,  Scandinavians,  Italians, 


THE  NKW   YORK  POLICE 


205 


3 


Slavs,  and  men  of  other  nationalities.  All  soon  become 
welded  into  one  body.  They  are  physically  a  fine  lot. 
Moreover,  their  instincts  are  right;  they  arc  game,  they  are 
alert  and  self-reliant,  they  prefer  to  act  squarely  if  they  are 
allowed  so  to  act.  All  that  they  need  is  to  be  given  the 
chance  to  prove  themselves  honest,  brave,  and  self-respect- 
ing. 

The  law  at  present  is  much  better  than  in  our  day,  so 
far  as  governing  the  force  is  concerned.  There  is  now  a 
single  Commissioner,  and  the  Mayor  has  complete  power 
over  him.  Tho  Masor,  through  his  Commissioner,  now 
has  power  to  keep  the  police  force  on  a  good  level  of  conduct 
if  with  resolution  and  common  sense  he  insists  on  absolute 
honesty  within  the  force  and  at  the  same  time  heartily 
supports  it  against  the  criminal  classes.  To  weaken  the 
force  in  its  dealings  with  gangs  and  toughs  and  criminals 
generally  is  as  damaging  as  to  permit  dishonesty,  and, 
moreover,  works  towards  dishonesty.  But  while  under 
the  present  law  very  much  improvement  can  be  worked, 
there  is  need  of  change  of  the  law  which  will  make  the  Police 
Commissioner  a  permanent,  non-partisan  official,  holding 
office  so  long  as  he  proves  thoroughly  fit  for  the  job,  com- 
pletely independent  of  the  politicians  and  privileged  inter- 
ests, and  with  complete  power  over  the  force.  This  means 
that  there  must  be  the  right  law,  and  the  right  public  opinon 
back  of  the  law. 

The  many-sided  ethnic  character  of  the  force  now  and 
then  gives  rise  to,  or  affords  opportunity  for,  queer  happen- 
ings. Occasionally  it  enables  one  to  meet  emergencies  in 
the  best  possible' fashion.  While  I  was  Police  Commis- 
sioner an  anti-Semitic  preacher  from  Berlin,  Rector  Ahl- 
wardt,  came  over  to  New  York  to  preach  a  crusade  against 
the  Jews.  Many  of  the  New  York  Jews  were  much  excited 
and  asked  me  to  ji event  him  from  speaking  and  not  to 
give  him  police  protection.  This,  I  told  them,  was  impos- 
sible;  and  if  possible  would  have  been  undesirable  because 
it  would  have  made  him  a  martyr.  The  proper  thing  to 
do  was  to  make  him  ridiculous.  Accordingly  I  detailed  for 
his  protection  a  Jew  sergeant  and  a  score  or  two  of  Jew  police- 


2C/.     IHKODOKK    K(K)Si;\Ki;r-AN    Al  lOBUKIRAfllY 

mcii.  He  made  his  liaranKUo  against  the  |o\vs  uikIit  tlu- 
active  proteelion  of  some  forty  policemen",  everv  one  of 
them  a  jew  !  It  was  the  most  effective  possible  answer ; 
and  incidentally  it  was  an  object-lesson  to  our  people,  whose 
|?reatest  need  it  v.  to  learn  that  there  must  be  no  division 
by  class  hatred,  whether  this  hatred  be  that  of  creed  ajjainst 
creed,  nationality  ajrainst  nationality,  section  ajjainst  sec- 
tion, ()r  men  of  one  social  or  industrial  condition  against 
men  ol  another  social  and  industrial  condition.  '^'\-  must 
ever  judge  each  individual  on  his  own  conduct  a  merits, 
and  not  on  his  memln-rship  in  any  class,  whether  that  class 
be  based  on  theological,  social,  or  industrial  considerations. 
Among  my  political  opponents  when  I  was  Police  Com- 
missKMier  was  the  head  of  a  very  influential  local  Democratic 
«)rgamzation.  He  was  a  .State  Senator  usuallv  known  as  B.g 
nm  Sullivan.  Big  Tim  represented  the  morals  of  another  era  ; 
that  is,  his  principles  and  actions  were  verv  much  those  of  a' 
•Norman  noble  in  the  years  immediately  succeeding  the  Battle 
of  Hastings.  (This  will  seem  flatterv  onl>  to  those  who  are 
not  acquainted  with  the  real  histories  and  antecedents  of 
the  Norman  nobles  of  the  epoch  in  question.)  His  applica- 
tion of  these  eleventh-century  theorii-s  to  our  nineteenth- 
century  municipal  democratic  conditions  brought  him  into 
sharp  contact  with  me,  and  with  one  of  mv  rie'it-'  -nd  men 
in  the  Department,  Inspector  John  McCullough.  Under 
the  old  dispensation  this  would  have  meant  that  his  friends 
and  kinsfolk  were  under  the  ban. 

Now  it  happened  that  in  the  Department  at  that  time 
there  was  a  nephew  or  cousin  of  his,  jerry  D.  S-illivan.  I 
found  that  jerry  was  an  uncommonly  good  man,  a  con- 
scientious, capable  ofi^cer.  and  I  promoted  him.  I  do  not 
know  whether  jerry  or  jerry's  cousin  (Senator  Sulliv;>n) 
was  more  astonished.  The  Senator  called  upon  me  to 
express  what  I  am  sure  was  a  very  genuine  feeling  of  appre- 
ciation. Poor  jerry  died,  I  think  of  consumption,  a  vear 
or  two  after  I  h-lt  the  Department.  He  was  promoted 
again  after  I  left,  and  he  then  showed  that  he  possessed 
the  very  rare  qualit\  (,t  gratitude,  for  he  sent  me  a  telegram 
dated  January   15.   1S98,  running  as  follows:     "Was  made 


'IHK   NF.W   YORK    POI.IC  K 


207 


siTjjcaiit  to-da).  I  lliaiik  joii  l«>r  .lil  in  my  liisl  aihaim- 
nu'iit."  And  in  a  Itttii  writtvii  t<>  nic  lu-  saiil  :  "In  tin- 
fuluri-,  as  ill  the  past,  I  will  ciukavor  al  all  times  to  per- 
form my  duty  honestly  and  fjarlessly,  and  never  cause 
vou  to  feel  that  you  were  mistaken  in  me,  so  that  you  will 
l)e  justly  proud  of  my  record."  The  Senator,  though  polit- 
ically opposed  to  me,  always  kept  a  feeling  of  friendship 
for  me  after  this  incident.  He  served  in  Congress  while 
I  was  President. 

The  police  can  be  used  to  help  all  kinds  of  good  purposes. 
When  I  was  Police  Commissioner  much  difficult)  had  been 
encountered  in  locating  illegal  and  fraudulent  practitioners 
of  medicine.  Dr.  Maurice  Lewi  called  on  me,  with  a  letter 
from  James  Russell  Parsons,  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Regents  at  Albany,  and  asked  me  if  I  could  not  help.  After 
questioning  him  I  found  that  the  local  authorities  were 
eager  to  prosecute  these  men,  but  could  not  locate  them; 
and  I  made  up  m\-  mind  I  would  try  m\  hand  at  it.  Accord- 
ingly, a  sealed  order  was  sent  to  the  commanding  officer 
of  each  police  precinct  in  New  York,  not  to  be  opened  until 
just  before  the  morning  roll  call,  previous  to  the  police 
squad  going  on  duty.  This  order  required  that,  immediately 
upon  reaching  post,  each  patrolman  should  go  over  his 
beat  and  enter  upon  a  sheet  of  paper,  provided  for  that  pur- 
pose, the  full  name  and  address  c^f  every  J-ictor  sign  there 
appearing.  Immediately  upon  securing  this  information, 
the  patrolman  was  instructed  to  return  the  sheet  to  the  offi- 
cer in  charge  of  the  precinct.  The  latter  in  turn  was  in- 
structed to  collect  and  place  in  one  large  envelope  and  to 
return  to  Police  Headquarters  all  the  data  thus  received. 
As  a  result  of  this  procedure,  within  two  ln)urs  the  prose- 
cuting officials  of  the  city  of  New  York  were  in  possession 
of  the  name  and  address  of  every  person  in  Xew  York  who 
announced  himself  as  a  physician  ;  and  scores  of  pretended 
physicians  were  brought  to  book  or  driven  from  the  city. 

One  of  the  perennially  serious  and  difficult  problems, 
and  one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  police  blackmail  and  cor- 
ruption, is  to  be  found  in  the  excise  situation  in  New  York. 
When   I  was  Police  Commissioner,  New  York  was  •>  city 


•A 


M 


2o8     IFFKODORK    R()()SK\  KLT  -  AX    AUIOBIOCJRAPIIV 

with  twflvt'  or  fifteen  tliousand  saloons,  witli  a  State  law 
wlndi  said  they  sliould  he  closed  on  Sundavs,  and  with  a 
Deal  sentiment  which  put  a  premiuin  on  violating  the  law 
by  making  Sunday  the  most  proliiahle  day  in  the  week  to 
the  saloon-keeper  who  was  willing  to  take  chances.  It 
was  this  willingness  to  take  chances  that  furnished  Xo  the 
corrupt  politician  and  the  corrupt  police  officer  their  oppor- 
tunities. 

There  was  in  New  \ork  City  a  strong  sentiment  in  favor 
ot  honesty  in  politics;  there  was  also  a  strong  sentiment 
in  favor  of  opening  the  saloons  on  Sundavs;  and,  finally, 
there  was  a  strong  sentiment  in  favor  of  keeping  the  saloons 
closed  on  Sunday.  Unfortunately,  manv  of  the  men  who 
favored  honest  government  nevertheless'  preferred  keeping 
the  saloons  open  to  having  honest  government ;  and  many 
others  among  the  men  who  favored  honest  government  put 
it  second  to  keeping  the  saloons  closed.  Moreover,  among 
the  people  who  wished  the  law  obeyed  and  the  saloons 
closed  there  were  plenty  who  objected  strongly  to  every 
step  necessary  to  accomplish  the  result,  although  they  also 
insisted  that  the  result  should  be  accomplished. 

Meanwhile  the  politicians  found  an  incredible  profit  in 
using  the  law  as  a  club  to  keep  the  saloons  in  line;  allexcept 
the  biggest,  the  owners  of  which,  or  the  owners  of  the  brew- 
cries  back  of  which,  sat  in  the  inner  councils  of  Tammany 
or  controlled  Tammany's  allies  in  the  Republican  organiza- 
tion. The  police  used  the  partial  and  spasmodic  enforce- 
ment of  the  law  as  a  means  of  collecting  blackmail.  The 
result  was  that  the  officers  of  the  law,  the  politicians,  and 
the  saloon-keepers  became  inextricably  tangled  in  a  net- 
work of  crime  and  connivance  at  crime.  The  most  powerful 
saloon-keepers  controlled  the  politicians  and  the  police 
while  the  latter  in  turn  terrorized  and  blackmailed  all  the 
other  saloon-keepers.  It  was  not  a  case  of  non-enforce- 
ment of  the  law.  The  law  was  very  actively  enforced,  but 
It  was  enforced  with  corrupt  discrimination. 

It  IS  difficult  for  men  who  have  not  been  brought  into 
contact  with  that  side  of  political  life  which  deals  with  the 
underworld  to  understand  the  brazen  openness  with  which 


THE   XKW   YORK    POLICE 


209 


this  blackmailing  of  lawbreakers  was  carried  out.     A  further 
very  dark  fact  was  that  many  of  the  men  responsible  for 
putting  the  law  on  the  statute-books  in  order  to  please  one 
element  of  their  constituents,    .!  ->  connived  at  or  even  prof- 
ited by  the  corrupt  and  \    itiai  nui-r.iforcement  of  the  law 
in  order  to  please  anoth  r  set  of  !lie!'   constituent>,  or  to 
secure  profit  for  themseh   . .     Tlr-  org.  •.  of  the  liquor-sellers 
at  that   time  was    the     /'';,'•    a':d    Spirit    Gazette.^      The 
editor  of  this  paper  believed  in  selling  liquor  on  Sunday, 
and  felt  that  it  was  an  outrage  to  forbid  it.     But  he  also 
felt  that  corruption  and  blackmail   made  too  big  a   price 
to  pay  for  the  partial  non-enforcement  of  the  law.     He  made 
in  his  paper  a  statement,  the  correctness  of  which  was  never 
questioned,   which  offers  a  startling  commentary  on  New 
York  politics  of  that  period.      In  this  stateinent  he  recited 
the  fact  that  the  system  of  blackmail  had  been  brought 
to  such  a  state  of  perfection,  and  had  become  so  oppressive 
to  the  liquor  dealers  themselves,  that  they  communicated 
at  length  on  the  subject  with  Governor  Hill  (the  State  Dem- 
ocratic boss)  and  then  with  Mr.  Croker  (the  city  Democratic 
boss).     Finally  the  matter  was  formally  taken  up  by  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Central  Association  of  Liquor  Dealers  in  an 
interview  they  held  with  Mr.  Martin,  my  Tammany  pred- 
ecessor as    President  of    the   police   force.     In    matter-of- 
course  way  the  editor's  statement  continues:     "An  agree- 
ment was  made  between  the  leaders  of  Tammany  Hall  and 
the  liquor  dealers  according  to  which  the  monthly  blackmail 
paid  to  the  force  should  be  discontinued  in  return  for  politi- 
cal support."     Not  only  did  the  big  bosses.  State  and  local, 
treat  this  agreement,  and  the  corruption  to  which  it  was 
due,  as  normal  and  proper,  but  they  never  even  took  the 
trouble  to  deny  what  had  been  done  when  it  was   made 
public.     Tammany  and  the  police,  however,  did  iiot  fully 
live  up  to  the  agreement;  and  much  discrimination  of  a 
very  corrupt  kind,  and  of  a  very  exasperating  kind  to  liquor- 
sellers  who  wished  to  be  honest,  continued  in  connection 
with  the  enforcing  of  the  law. 

In  short,  the  agreement  was  kept  only  with  those  who  had 
"pull."     These  men  with  "pull"  were  benefited  when  their 


i 


2IO     rilKODORK    KOOSIAKI.I'       AN     \l  TOHIOCR  \|>|  I V 

ri\als  \wvi-  Inilliril  and  hlackinaili-d  by  the  police.  Tin- 
police-,  tncainvliilf,  who  liail  Ix.iiL'lit  appDitilmcnt  or  pro- 
motion, anti  tin-  politicians  hack  of  tlu  in,  cxtcin.Uil  ihc  black- 
mailing to  include  about  c\cr\  tliinj;  iVom  tlu'  pushcart 
peddler  and  the  big  or  small  merchant  who  wished  to  use 
the  sidewalk  illegally  for  his  goods,  up  to  the  keepers  of 
the  brothel,  the  gambling-house,  and  the  policy-shop. 
'I'lie  total  blackmail  ran  into  millions  of  dollars.  Xew  "\'ork 
was  a  wide-open  town.  The  big  bosses  rolled  in  wealth, 
and  the  corrupt  pc^licemen  who  ran  the  force  lost  all  sense 
of  decency  and  justice.  \e\erthe!ess.  I  wish  to  insist 
on  the  fact  that  tlie  honest  men  on  the  patrol  posts,  "the 
men  with  the  night-sticks,"  remained  desirous  to  see  honesty 
obtain,  although  they  were  losing  courage  and  hope. 

This  was  the  situation  that  confronted  me  when  I  came 
to  Mulberry  Street.  The  saloon  was  the  chief  source  of 
mischief.  It  was  with  the  saloon  that  I  had  to  deal,  and 
there  was  only  one  wa\-  to  deal  with  it.  That  was  to  enforce 
the  law.  The  howl  that  rose  was  deafening.  The  pro- 
fessional pf)liticians  raved.  The  yellow  press  surpassed 
themselves  in  clamor  and  mendacity.  A  favorite  asser- 
tion was  that  I  was  enforcing  a  -'blue"  law,  an  obsolete 
law  that  hatl  never  before  been  iiiforced.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  was  only  enforcing  honestly  a  law  that  had  hitherto 
been  enforced  dishonestly.  There  was  ver_\-  little  increase 
in  the  number  of  arrests  made  for  violating  the  Sunday 
law.  Indeed,  there  were  weiks  when  the  number  of  arrest's 
went  down.  The  onl\-  difference  was  that  there  was  no 
protected  class.  Kver\body  was  arrested  alike,  and  I 
took  especial  pains  to  see  that  there  was  no  discrimination, 
and  that  the  big  men  and  the  men  with  political  inHuence 
were  treated  like  every  cMie  else.  The  immediate  effect 
was  wholl)'  good.  I  had  been  told  that  it  was  not  possible 
to  close  the  saloons  on  Sunday  and  that  I  could  not  succeed. 
However,  I  did  succeed.  The  warden  of  Bellevue  Hospital 
reported,  two  or  three  weeks  after  we  had  begun,  that  for 
the  first  time  in  if  existence  there  had  not  been  a  case  due 
to  a  drunken  brawl  in  the  hospital  all  Monday.  The  police 
courts  gave  the  same  testimony,  while  savings  banks  recorded 


'INK    M'.W     YORK    I'OLICK 


211 


increased  deposits  and  pawnshops  iiard  limes.  The  most 
touching'  of  all  things  was  the  fact  that  we  received  letters, 
iiteralh-  by  the  hundred,  from  mothers  in  tenement-houses 
who  liad  never  been  allowed  to  take  their  children  to  tho 
countrv  in  the  wide-open  days,  and  who  now  found  their 
husbands  willing  to  take  them  and  their  families  for  an 
outing  on  Sunday.  Jake  Riis  and  I  spent  one  Sunday  from 
morning  till  night  in  the  tenement  districts,  seeing  for  our- 
selves  what   iiatl   happened. 

During  the  two  years  that  we  wire  in  office  things  never 
slipped  back  to  anything  like  what  they  had  been  before. 
But  we  did  not  succei'd  in  keeping  them  quite  as  hi'rhly 
keyed  as  during  these  first  weeks.  As  regards  the  Sunday- 
closing  law,  this  was  partl\-  because  public  sentiment  was 
not  really  with  us.  The  people  who  had  demanded  honesty, 
but  who  did  not  like  to  pa\-  for  it  b\'  the  loss  of  illegal  pleas- 
ure, joined  the  openly  dishonest  in  attacking  us.  .\lore- 
over,  all  kinds  of  ways  of  evading  the  law  were  tried,  and 
some  ot  them  were  successful.  The  statute,  for  instance, 
permitted  any  man  to  take  liquor  with  meals.  After  two 
or  three  months  a  magistrate  was  found  who  decided  judi- 
cially that  seventeen  beers  and  one  pretzel  made  a  meal  - 
after  which  decision  joy  again  became  uiiconfined  in  at  least 
some  of  the  saloons,  and  the  yellow  press  gleefully  announced 
that  my  "tyranny"  had  been  curbed.  But  my  prime 
object,    that   of   stopping   blackmail,    was    largely    attained. 

All  kinds  of  incidents  occurred  in  connection  with  this 
crusade.  One  of  them  introduced  me  to  a  friend  who 
remains  a  friend  yet.  His  name  was  Kdward  J.  Bourke. 
He  was  one  of  the  men  who  entered  the  police  force  through 
our  examinations  shortly  after  I  took  office.  I  had  sum- 
moned twenty  or  thirty  of  tlie  successful  applicants  to  let 
me  look  over  them;  and  as  I  walked  into  the  hall,  one  of 
them,  a  well-set-up  man,  called  out  sharpl\  to  the  others, 
"(langway,"  making  them  move  to  one  side.  I  found  he 
had  scrveil  in  the  liiitetl  States  nav)-.  The  inciilent  was 
sufficient  to  make  me  ki'ep  him  in  n)ind.  A  month  later  T 
was  notifit-d  b)  a  police  reporter,  a  ver\-  good  fellow,  that 
Bourke  was  in  difficulties,  and  that  he  thought  I  had  better 


212    TllEUDORE    RUOSENELT  — AN    ALTUBIOGR  MM  I V 


look  into  the  matter  myself,  as  Bourke  was  being  .  ^used 
by  certain  very  influential  men  of  grave  misconduct  in  an 
arrest  he  had  made  the  night  before.  Accordingly,  I  took 
the  matter  up  personally.  I  found  that  on  the  new  patrol- 
man's beat  the  preceding  night  —  a  new  beat  —  there  vyas 

a  big  saloon  run  by 
a  man  of  great  in- 
fluence in  political 
circles  known  as 
"King"  Calahan. 
After  midnight  the 
saloon  was  still  run- 
ning in  full  blast, 
and  Bourke,  step- 
ping inside,  told 
Calahan  to  close  up. 
It  was  at  the  time 
filled  with  "friends 
of  personal  libert\," 
as  (loxcrnor  Hill 
used  at  that  time, 
in  moments  of  pa- 
thos, to  term  ever\  - 
bod\-  who  regarded 
as  tyranny  any  re- 
striction on  the  sale 
ofliquor.  Calahan's 
saloon  had  never  be- 
fore in  its  histor\- 
been  closed,  and  to 
have  a  green  cop 
tell  him  to  close  it 
seemed  to  him  so  incredible  that  he  regarded  it  merely  as  a  bad 
jest.  On  his  ne.xt  round  Bourke  stepped  in  and  repeated  the 
order.  Calahan  felt  that  tin-  jest  had  gone  too  far,  and  by 
way  of  protest  knocked  Bourke  down.  This  was  an  error  of 
judgnu-tit  oti  his  pari,  f(ir  when  Bourkr  an.>e  he  knucktd 
down  Calahan.  The  two  then  grappled  and  fell  on  the  floor, 
while  the  "friends  of  personal  liberty"  danced  around  the 


("\riMN    KdWAKU   J      Hoi  RKK 

KiiiK  CaLih.mV  siIi»ipi  hail  iicvtr  lufurc  in  it-.  liiMorv 
t)iin  »lciM(l.  aiicl  111  liavi  a  Kriiii  nip  tell  him  IhiIh^l 
Mimnl  111  him  s<i  i n i. reel i hie  that  hi-  rij;ariltHl  il  rnvnly 
as  a  liad  jiM ." 


nil,    MAV    YORK    IH)I,KK 


213 


liu'lit  ;iiul  I'luU'avorcil  w.  stamp  on  i-viTythin^  tlu-)-  thought 
wasn't  Cahilian.      IImucv.t,  Bourkc,  tlioiigh  pwHy  roughly 
luindlcd,    got     his    man    and    shut     the    saloon.     When    ho 
appeared    against    the    lawbreaker    i;i    eourt    next    day,    he 
found  the  eourt-room  crowded   with  influential  Tammany 
liall  politicians,  backed  by  one  or  two  Republican  leaders 
of  the  same  type;  for  Calahan  was  a  baron  of  the  under- 
world, and  both  his  feudal  superiors  and  his  feudal  inferiors 
gathered   to   the   rescue.      His   backers   in   court   included   a 
Congressman  and  a  State  Senator,  and  so  deep-rooted  was 
the  police  belief  in  "pull"  that  his  own  superiors  had  turned 
against   Bourke  and  were  preparing  to  sacrifice  him.     Just 
at  this  time  1   acted  on  the  information  given  me  by  my 
newspaper  friend  by  starting  in  person  for  the  court.     The 
knowledge  that    I   knew  what  was  going  on,  that  I  meant 
what  I  said,  and  that  I  intended  to  make  the  affair  personal, 
was   all    that    was    necessary.      Before    I    reached   the   court 
all    eflFort    to   defend    Calahan    had    promptly    ceased,    and 
Bourke   had  come  forth   triumphant.      I   immediately   pro- 
moted him  to  roundsman.     He  is  a  captain  now.     He  has 
been  on  the  force  ever  since,  save  that   when  the  Spanish 
War  came  he  obtained  a  holiday  without  pay  U)v  six  months 
and  reentered  the  navy,  serving  as  gun  captain    in    one  of 
the  gunboats,  and  doing  his  work,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
in  first-rate  fashion,  especiall>-  when  under  fire. 

Let  me  again  say  that  when  men  tell  me  that  the  police 
are  irredeemably  bad  1  remember  scores  and  hundreds  of 
cases  like  this  of  Bourke,  like  the  case  I  have  already  men- 
tioned of  Raphael,  like  the  other  cases  1  have  given  above. 
It  is  useless  to  tell  me  that  these  men  are  bad.  They  are 
naturally  first-rate  men.  There  are  no  better  men  any- 
where than  the  men  of  the  New  York  police  force  ;  and  when 
they  go  bad  it  is  because  the  system  is  wrong,  and  because 
they  are  not  given  the  chance  to  do  the  good  work  they  can 
do  and  would  rather  do.  I  never  coddled  these  men.  I 
punished  them  severely  whenever  I  thought  their  conduct 
required  it.  .Ml  i  did  was  to  try  to  be  just ;  to  reward  them 
when  they  did  well ;  in  short,  to  act  squarely  by  them.  I 
believe  that,  as  a  whole,  they  liked  mc.     When,  in   1912, 


214     TIIKODOKK    UOOSIAKI.T       ,\.\    AlK  )|;|()(  ;R  \|>||  V 


ran    lor 


I'll '^iiknt 


"II    the    l'i<>,u'i(s>i\c    iKk,-i.    I    iii.iviil 
a  mimlHT  ..I   iiiisiuii.d   l.-uirs   iiulc.>ii,K  smiis  ..I   iu..iirv   for 
llK-    campaij;...     (),u-    u\     i|„.sr    i,ui..srtl     twc-ntv     dollars 
I  ho  uritcM-.  ulio  did  not  give  his  Manic,  said  that  he  was  a 
policeman,  that  I  had  once  had  him  before  me  on  charges 
and  had  hned  him  twenty  dollars  ;  that,  as  a  matter  ..f  fact! 
lie  had  not  committed  the  otFense  tor  which  \  fined  him,  Init 
that   the  evidence  was  such  that   he  did  not   wonder  that    I 
iuid  been  misled,  and  never  blamed  me  for  it,  because  I  had 
act  -d   sqiiarely    and    had   given    honest    and   decent    men   a 
chance  111  the  Police  Department;  and  that  now  he  inclosed 
a  twenty-dollar  b-11.  the  amonnt  of  the  tine  inHicted  on  him 
so  many  years  bet..,v.      I  I,a\e  alwaxs  wished   I   knew  who 
tlic  man  was. 

The  discipliiiaiN-  courts  were  ver\  interestiiiir.  Hiit  it 
was  extraordinarily  difficult  to  -et  at'  the  facts  in  the  more 
complicated  cases  as  must  alwavs  be  true  under  similar 
circumstaiK-es;  tor  ordinarily  it  is  necessar\-  to  back  up  the 
superior  officer  who  makes  th,.  charge,  and  \  et  it  is  alwa\s 
pc.ssible  that  this  superior  officer  is  consci.'.uslv  <.r  uncon- 
scious!)   biased  against   his  subordinate. 

In  the  courts  the  charges  were  sometimes  brought  bv 
pohce  officers  and  sometimes  bv  private  citizens.  In  the 
latter  case  we  would  get  queer  insights  into  twilight  phases 
..!  -New  ^ork  life.  It  was  necessar\  to  be  alwavs  ..n  our 
guard.  Often  an  accusation  w.-uld  'be  broiighf  against  the 
policeman  because  he  had  be-n  guiltv  of  misconduct  .Much 
more  often  the  accusation  merelv  meant  that  the  officer 
had  incurred  ammosit>  In  doing  his  dut\  .  I  remember  one 
amusing  case  where  the  officer  was  wholiv  to  blame  but  had 
acted  in  entire  good   taith. 

One  of  the  favorite  and  most  demoralizing  forms  of 
gambling  in  .\ew  ^  ork  was  policv-plaving.  The  policv 
slips  insisted  ot  papers  with  three  rows' of  figures  written 
on  them.  I  he  officer  in  question  was  a  huge  pithecoid 
out  of  a  creature,  with  a  wooden  face  and  a  receding  fore- 
head, and  his  accuser  whom  he  had  arrested  the  preceding 
evening  was  a  little  grig  of  a  red-headed  man,  obviously 
respectal)le,   and  almost   incf)herent   w-  h   rage.     The  anger 


Illl':    M:\\    YORK    I'OMCK 


2IS 


of  tlic  link'  rcd-hfadcd  man  was  but  natural,  for  he  had  just 
come  out  from  a  night  in  the  station-house.  He  had  been 
arrested  late  in  the  evening  on  suspicion  that  he  was  a 
policy-player,  because  of  the  rows  of  figures  on  a  piece  of 
paper  which  lie  had  held  in  his  hand,  and  because  at  the  time 
of  his  arrest  he  had  just  stepped  into  the  entrance  of  the 
hall  of  a  tenemc-.t-houre  in  order  to  read  by  lamplight. 
The  paper  was  produced  in  evidence.  There  were  the  three 
rows  of  figures  ali  right,  but,  as  the  accuser  explained,  hop- 
ping up  and  down  with  rage  ar.d  excitement,  they  were  all 
of  them  the  numbers  of  hymns.  He  was  the  superintendent 
of  a  small  Sunda> -school.'  He  had  written  down  the  hymns 
for  several  future  services,  one  under  the  other,  and  on  the 
wa>-  home  was  stopping  to  look  at  them,  under  convenient 
lamp-posts,  and  finally  by  the  light  of  the  lamp  in  a  tene- 
ment-house hallway  ;  and  it  was  this  conduct^  which  struck 
the  sagacious  man  in  uniform  as  "suspicious." 

One  of  the  saddest  features  of  police  work  is  dealing  with 
the  social  evil,  with  prostitutes  and  houses  of  ill  fame. 
in  so  far  as  the  law  gave  me  power,  I  always  treated  the  men 
taken  in  any  raid  on  these  houses  precisely  as  the  women 
were  treated.  M\-  experience  brought  me  to  the  ver\-  strong 
conviction  that  tl'iere  ought  not  to  be  any  toleration  by  law 
of  the  vice.  1  do  not  know  of  an>-  method  which  w-ill  put 
a  complete  stop  to  the  e\il,  but  I  do  know  certain  things 
that  ought  to  be  done  to  minimize  it.  One  ot  these  is 
treating  men  and  women  on  an  e.xact  equalit\-  for  the  same 
act.  Anotlier  is  the  establishment  of  ipght  courts  and  of 
special  commissions  to  deal  with  this  special  class  ot  cases. 
Another  is  that  suggested  by  the  Rev.  Charles  Stelzle,  of  the 
Labor  Temple  to  publish  conspicuousl\-  the  name  ot  the 
owner  of  any  property  used  for  immoral  purposes,  after 
said  owner  has  been  notified  of  the  use  and  has  failed  to 
prevent  it.  Another  is  to  prosecute  the  keepers  and  backers 
of  brothels,  men  and  women,  as  relentlessly  and  punish 
them  as  severeh  as  pickpockets  and  common  thieves.  They 
should  never  be  fined;  llu'X  should  be  iinpi i^onid.  A>  tor 
the  girls,  the  \  er\  young  ones  and  first  otTenders  should  be 
put  in  the  charge  of  probation  ofHcers  or  sent   to  reforma- 


if 


t 

't.r 


216     THKODORK    K(X)SKV  KLT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

torics,  and  the  large  percentage  of  feeble-minded  girls  and 
of  incorrigible  girls  and  women  should  be  sent  to  institu- 
tions created  for  them.  We  would  thus  remove  from  this 
hideous  commerce  the  articles  of  commerce.  Moreover, 
the  Federal  Government  must  in  ever-increasing  measure 
proceed  against  the  degraded  promoters  of  this  commercial- 
ism, for  their  activities  are  inter-State,  and  the  Nation  can 
often  deal  with  them  more  effectively  than  the  States; 
although,  as  public  sentiment  becomes  aroused,  Nation 
State,  and  municipality  will  all  cooperate  towards  the  same 
end  of  rooting  out  the  traffic.  But  the  prime  need  is  to 
raise  the  level  of  individual  moralitv ;  and,  moreover  to 
encourage  early  marriages,  the  single  standard  of  sex- 
morality,  and  a  strict  sense  of  reciprocal  conjugal  obliga- 
tion. The  women  who  preach  late  marriages  are  by  just 
so  much  making  it  difficult  to  better  the  standard  of 
chastity. 

As  regards  the  white  slave  traffic,  the  men  engaged  in  it, 
and  the  women  too,  are  far  worse  criminals  than  any  ordi- 
nary murderers  can  be.  For  them  there  is  need  of  such  a 
law  as  that  recently  adopted  in  England  through  the  efforts 
of  Arthur  Lee,  M.P.,  a  law  which  includes  whipping  for  the 
male  offenders  There  are  brutes  so  low,  so  infamous,  so 
degraded  and  bestial  in  their  cruelty  and  brutality,  that 
the  only  way  to  get  at  them  is  through  their  skins.  Scnti- 
mentajity  on  behalf  of  such  men  is  really  almost  as  unhealthy 
and  wicked  as  the  criminality  of  the  men  themseves  My 
experience   is   that   there   should    be   no   toleration   of   any 

tenderloin  or  "red  light"  district,  and  that,  above  all, 
there  should  be  the  most  relentless  war  on  commercialized 
vice.  The  men  who  profit  and  make  their  living  by  the 
depravity  and  the  awful  misery  of  other  human  beings  stand 
tar  below  any  ordinary  criminals,  and  no  measures  taken 
against  them  can  be  too  severe. 

As  for  the  wretched  girls  who  follow  the  dreadful  trade 
in  question,  a  good  deal  can  be  done  bv  a  change  in  economic 
conditions.  This  ..uglii  lo  Ik-  done.  When  girls  are  paid 
wages  inadequate  to  keep  them  from  starvation,  or  to  permit 
them  to  live  decently,  a  certain  proportion  are  forced  bv 


E.i 


'IHK   M:\V    'iORK    POLICK 


217 


their  economic  misery  into  lives  of  vice.  The  employers 
and  all  others  responsible  for  these  conditions  stand  on  a 
morjl  Icvl  n'>t  far  above  the  white  slavers  themselves. 
But  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  either  the  correction  of 
these  economic  conditions  or  the  abolition  of  the  white 
slave  trade  will  wholly  correct  the  evil  or  will  even  reach  the 
major  part  of  it.  The  economic  factor  is  very  far  from 
being  the  chief  factor  in  inducing  girls  to  go  into  this  dread- 
ful life.  As  with  so  many  other  problems,  while  there  must 
be  governmental  action,  there  must  also  be  strengthening  of 
the  average  individual  character  in  order  to  achieve  the 
desired  end.  Kven  where  economic  conditions  are  bad, 
girls  who  are  both  strong  and  pure  will  remain  unaffected 
by  temptations  to  which  girls  of  weak  character  or  lax 
standards  readily  yield.  Any  man  who  knows  the  wide 
variation  in  the  proportions  of  the  different  races  and  nation- 
alities engaged  in  prostitution  must  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  treat  economic  conditions  as 
the  sole  conditions  or  even  as  the  chief  conditions  that  deter- 
mine this  question.  There  are  certain  races  —  the  Irish 
are  honorably  conspicuous  among  them  —  which,  no  matter 
what  the  economic  pressure,  furnish  relatively  few  inmates 
of  houses  of  ill  fame.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  diflferences 
are  due  to  permanent  race  characteristics ;  this  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  the  best  settlement  houses  find  that  prac- 
tically all  their  "long-term  graduates,"  so  to  speak,  all  the 
girls  that  come  for  a  long  period  under  their  influence,  no 
matter  what  their  race  or  national  origin,  remain  pure. 
In  every  race  there  are  some  naturally  vicious  individuals 
and  some  weak  individuals  who  readily  succumb  under  eco- 
nomic pressure.  A  girl  who  is  lazy  and  hates  hard  work, 
a  girl  whose  mind  is  rather  feeble,  who  is  of  "subnormal 
intelligence,"  as  the  phrase  now  goes,  or  a  girl  who  craves 
cheap  finery  and  vapid  pleasure,  is  always  in  danger.  A 
high  ideal  of  personal  purity  is  essential.  Where  the  same 
pressure  under  the  same  economic  conditions  has  tenfold 
the  effect  on  one  set  of  people  that  it  has  on  another,  it  is 
evident  that  the  question  of  moral  standards  is  even  more 
important  than  the  question  of  economic  standards,  very 


u 


2iS     IMKODORi:    kOOSKXLLT- AN    ALTOBKXJRAPilV 

important  tliDUgh  tliis  quc-stioii  is.      It  is  important  for  us 
to  rfmc-mhcr  that  tin-  girl  ought  to  have-  the  chance,  not  only 
for  the-  necessaries  of  life,  but  for  innocent  pleasure;  and  that 
even  more  than  the  man  she  must  not  be  broken  by  over- 
work, b}-  excessive  toil.      Moreover,  public  opinion  and  the 
law  should  combine  to  hunt  down  the  "Hagrant  man  swine" 
who  himself  hunts  down  poor  o    silly  or  unprotected  girls. 
Hut  we  must   not,  in  foolish  sentimentalit)-,  excuse  the  girl 
from  her  duty  to  keep  herself  pure.     Our  duty  to  achieve 
the  same  moral  le\el  for  the  two  sexes  must  be  performed 
by  raising  the  level  for  the  man,  not  by  lowering  it  for  the 
woman;  and   the  lad   that  societ)-  must   recognize  its  dutv 
in  no  shape  or  way  reliexcs,  not  e\en  to  the  smallest  degree, 
the  individual  from  doing  his  or  her  dut\-.      Sentimentality 
which  grows  maudlin  on  behalf  of  the  willful  prostitute  is 
a  curse;  to  confound  her  with  the  I'ntrapped  or  coerced  girl, 
the  real  white  slave,  is  both  foolish  and  wicked.     There  are 
evil  women  just  as  there  are  evil  men,  naturally  depraved 
girls  just  as  there  are  naturally  depraved  young  men;  and 
the  right  a:s.l  wise  thing,  the  just   thing,  to  them,  and  the 
generous  tlii.ig  to  innocent  girls  and  decent  men,  is  to  wage 
stern  war  against  the  evil  creatures  of  both  sexes. 

In  company  with  jacf)b  Riis,  I  did  much  work  that  was 
not  connected  with  the  actual  discipline  of  the  force  or  indeed 
with  the  actual  work  of  the  force.  There  was  one  thing 
which  he  ami  I  abolished  police  lodging-houses,  which  were 
simply  tramp  lodging-houses,  and  a  fruitful  encouragement  to 
vagranc\-.  Those  who  read  Mr.  Riis's  story  of  his  own  life 
will  remember  the  incidents  that  gave  him  from  actual  per- 
sonal experience  his  horror  of  these  tramp  lodging-houses. 
.\s  member  of  the  Health  Board  I  was  brought  into  very 
close  relations  with  the  conditions  of  life  in  the  tenement- 
house  districts.  Here  again  I  used  to  visit  the  different 
tenement-house  regions,  usually  in  company  with  Riis, 
to  see  for  m_\self  what  the  conditions  were.  It  w^as  largely 
this  personal  ixperienci-  that  eiuabled  me  while  on  the 
Health  Board  lo  struggle  not  onl\  zealously,  but  with  rea- 
Mtnable  etiicienc}  and  success,  to  imprr)ve  conditions.  We 
did  our  share  in   making  forward    strides  in  the  matter  of 


TFIK   \i:\\    YORK    fV)F,ICF. 


21.) 


Il(>ll^ill;^'  llic  UDikiiiL'  pciipic  III   the  ril\    uiili  soiiic  ri^aiil  lo 
tli'fi'tu)   ;irul  Kiiiitoil. 

Till-  midiiij^lit  trips  iluil  Kiis  and  I  t<«.k  inablc-d  inc  to 
sec  what  the-  Police-  IXjiartim-iit  was  doiii),',  and  also  jjave 
tnc  personal  insijjht  into  some  of  the  probh-ms  of  city  life. 
It  is  one  thinjj  to  listen  in  perfunctory  fashion  to  tales  of 
overcrowded  tenements,  aiul  it  is  quite  another  actually  to 


Till  iiiniKi    Ki«>si\n.i-  AMI  nil    Chiiuhin  ii>'  iiii     Tim  mini 


II 


I 


see  what  that  overcrowding  means,  .some  hot  summer  night, 
by  even  a  single  inspection  during  the  hours  of  darkness. 
There  was  a  \er\-  hot  spell  one  midsummer  while  I  was 
Police  Commissioner,  and  most  of  each  night  I  spent  walk- 
ing through  the  tenement-house  districts  and  visiting  police 
stations  to  sec  what  was  being  done.  It  was  a  tragic  week. 
We  did  everything  possible  tn  alleviate  the  suffering.  Much 
of  it  was  heartbreaking,  especially  the  gasping  misery  of 
the  little  children  and  of  the  worn-out  mothers.  Every 
resource  of  the  Health  Department,  of  the  Police  Depart- 


220    'IMKODORI.    K(H)SK\  Kl.r  -  AN    Al'IOIiUKIRAIMIV 


incut,  ami  i\rii  tin-  Kirc  IXpartmtiit  (vvliiih  t1(MKlfii  tlu- 
liot  stri'fts)  \va>  taxiJ  in  llu'  tlTort  to  rciulir  sri\icr.  I'lir 
litat  kilUil  siidi  miiliitiKlo  <>l  liorscs  thai  the  iiu-aiis  at 
our  disposal  lor  riino\  iiij;  the  [>oor  dead  In-asts  proved 
quite  inadequate,  althou>;h  every  nerve  was  straineil  to  tlic 
limit.  In  consequence  we  received  scores  of  complaints 
from  persons  before  whose  doors  dead  horses  had  remained, 
festering  in  the  heat,  for  two  or  tliree  days.  One  irascible 
miin  sent  us  furious  deiuinciations,  until  we  were  at  last 
able  It)  send  a  big  dray  to  di  i^'  away  the  horse  that  lay  dead 
before  his  shop  door.  'I'he  huge  dra\  already  contained 
eleven  other  dead  horses,  and  when  it  reached  this  par- 
ticular door  it  broke  down,  and  it  was  hours  before  it  could 
be  moved.  The  unfortunate  man  who  had  thus  been  cursed 
with  a  granted  wish  closed  his  doors  in  despair  and  wrof 
us  a  final  pathetic  letter  in  which  he  requested  us  to  remove 
either  the  horses  or  his  shop,  he  didn't  care  which. 

I  have  spoken  before  of  my  ex  rience  with  the  tenement- 
house  cigar  factory  law  which  the  highest  court  of  New  York 
State  declared  unconstitutional.  My  experience  in  the 
Police  Department  taught  me  that  not  a  few  of  the  worst 
tenement-houses  were  owned  by  wealthy  individuals,  who 
hired  the  best  and  most  expensive  lawyers  to  persuade  the 
courts  that  it  was  *' iinconstitutional"  to  insist  on  the  better- 
ment of  conditions.  These  business  men  and  lawyers  were 
very  adroit  in  using  a  word  with  fine  and  noble  associations 
to  cloak  their  opposition  to  vitally  necessary  mo\ements  lor 
industrial  fair  play  and  decency.  'I'he\'  made  it  evident 
that  they  valued  the  Constitution,  not  as  a  help  to  right- 
eousness, but  as  a  means  for  thwarting  movements  against 
unrighteousness.  After  my  experience  with  them  I  became 
norc  set  than  ever  in  my  distrust  of  tlujse  men,  whether 
business  men  or  lawyers,  judges,  legislators,  or  executive 
officers,  who  seek  to  make  of  the  Constitution  a  fetich  for 
the  prevention  of  the  work  cf  social  reform,  for  the  preven- 
tion of  work  in  the  interest  of  those  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren on  whose  behalf  we  should  be  at  liberty  to  employ 
freely  ev'ery  governmental  agency. 

Occasionally  during  the  two  years  we  had  to  put  a  stop 


THK   MAV   YORK    I'Oi    'JK 


221 


to  riotous  violcnci',  and  now  and  then  on  these  occasions 
some  c>i  ilie  labor  union  leaders  protested  a>rainst  the  actions 
of  the  police.     By  this  time  I  \va>  hecomin^  a  strong  believer 


in 


lal 


«)r  unions,   a   strong 


be! 


lever   in    tlie   riglu>   o 


f  lal 


)or. 


For  that  ver\    reason   I  was  all  the  more  bound   tr)  see  that 
lawlessness  and  disorder  wire  put  tlown,  and  that  no  rioter 
was  permitted  to  masquerade  under  the  guise  of  being  a 
friend  of  laboror  a  sympathizer  with  labor.      I  was  scrupulous 
to  see  that   the  labor  nu'ii  had  fair  pla>  ;  that,  for  instance, 
they  were  allowed   to  [Mcket   just   so  far  as   under  the  law 
picketing  could  be  permitted,  >o  that  the  strikers  hatl  ample 
opportunity  peacifullv    to  prrsuade  other  labi>r  men  lujt  to 
take    their    places,      lin'     I    made    it    clearl)    aiul   dettnitely 
understooil    that    undei    no   circumstaiHes    would    I    permit 
violence   or   fail    to   insist    upon    the    keeping   of   order.      If 
there  were  wrongs.  I  would  join  with  a  full  heart  in  striving 
to  have  them  corrected.      Hut  where  there  was  violence  all 
other  cjuestions  had  to  drop  until  order  was  restored.     This 
is  a  democracy,  and  the  people  have  the  power,  if  they  choose 
to  exercise  it,  to  make  conditions  as  they  ought  to  be  made, 
and  to  do  this  strictl\  within  the  law  ;  ami  therefore  the  first 
duty  of  the  true  democrat,  of  the  man  reall\-  loyal  io  the 
principles   of   popular   g(  vernmeiit.    is    to    see    that    law    is 
enforced    and   order   upheld.      It    was    a    peculiar   gratifica- 
tion to  me  that  so  many  of  the  labor  leaders  with  whom 
I  was  thrown  in  contact  grew  cordialh"  to  accept  this  view. 
When  I  left  the  IX-partment,  se\eral  called  upon  me  to  say 
how  sorry  they  were  that   1  was   not   to  continue  in  office. 
One,   the   Secretary  of  the    |ourne\  man    Bakers'   and  Con- 
fectioners'   International    I'liion,    Henr\    W'eismann,    wrote 
me  e.xpressing  his  regret  that  I  was  going,  and  his  apprecia- 
tion as  a  citizen  of  what  I  had  done  as  Police  Cc-.niissioner ; 
he    added:    "I    am    particularly    grateful    f  >r    your    liberal 
attitude   toward   organized   labor,   your   cordial   champion- 
ship of  those  speaking  in   behalf  of  the  toilers,   and   your 
evident  desire  to  do  the  right  thing  as  you  saw  it  at  whatever 
cost." 

Some  of  the  letters  1  received  on  having  the  l)epartinent 
were  from  unexpected  sources.     Mr.  E.  L.  Godkin,  an  editor 


222 


I IIKODORK    ROOSKA  KI/I-  AX    ALTOBIOCRAPHY 


'.U 


who  in  international  matters  was  not  a  patriotic  man,  wrote 
protesting  against  my  taking  the  Assistant-Secretaryship 
of  the  Navy,  and  adding:  "I  have  a  concern,  as  the 
Quakers  say,  to  put  on  record  my  earnest  belief  that  in 
New  ^'ork  you  are  doing  the  greatest  work  of  which  any 
American  tfVdaj-  is  capable,  and  exhibiting  to  the  young 
men  of  the  country  the  spectacle  of  a  very  important  office 
administered  by  a  man  of  high  character  in  the  most  effi- 
cient way  amid  a  thousand  difficulties.  As  a  lesson  in 
politics  r  cannot  think  of  anything  more  instructive." 

About  the  same  time  I  had  a  letter  from  Mr.  (afterwards 
Ambassador)  James  Bryce,  also  expressing  regret  that  I 
was  leaving  the  Police  Department,  but  naturally  with 
much  more  appreciation  of  the  work  that  was  to  be  done  in 
the  Navy  Department.  This  letter  I  quote,  witli  his  per- 
mission, because  it  conveys  a  lesson  to  those  who  are  inclined 
always  to  think  that  the  conditions  of  the  present  time  are 
very  bad.  It  was  written  July  7,  1H97.  Mr.  Bryce  spoke 
of  the  possibility  of  coming  to  America  in  a  month  or  so, 
and  continued  :  "  I  hope  I  may  have  a  chance  of  seeing  you 
if  I  do  get  over,  and  of  drawing  some  comfort  from  you  as 
regards  your  political  phenomena,  which,  so  far  as  I  can 
gather  from  those  of  your  countrymen  I  have  lately  seen, 
furnish  some  good  opportunities  for  a  persistent  optimist 
like  myself  to  show  that  he  is  not  to  be  lightly  discouraged. 
Don't  suppose  that  things  are  specially  '  nice.'  as  a  lady  would 
say,  in  Europe  either.  They  are  not."  Mr.  Bryce  was  a 
very  friendly  and  extraordinarily  competent  observer  of 
things  American  ;  and  there  was  this  distinct  note  of  dis- 
couragement about  our  future  in  the  intimate  letter  he  was 
thus  sending.  'W-t  this  was  at  the  very  time  when  the 
United  States  was  entering  on  a  dozen  years  during  which  our 
people  accomplished  more  good,  and  came  nearer  realizing 
the  possibilities  of  a  great,  free,  and  conscientious  democracy, 
than  during  any  other  df)zen  years  in  our  history,  save  only 
the  years  of  Lincoln's  Presidenc)'  and  the  period  during  which 
the  Nation  was  loumUil. 


cifAPrHR  \  n 


THE  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY 


A    SpwisH    Cannon    on   thk    I.wvn    at 
Sacamork. 


I  SUPPOSE  the  United 
States  will  always  be 
unready  for  war,  and 
in  consequence  will  al- 
ways be  exposed  to  great 
expense,  and  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  gravest  calam- 
ity, when  the  Nation  goes 
to  war.  This  is  no  new- 
thing.  Americans  learnonly 
from  catastrophes  and  not 
from  experience. 

There  would  have  been 
no  war  in  1812  if,  in  the 
previous    decade,    America, 

instead  of  announcing  that  "peace  was  her  passion,"  in- 
stead of  acting  on  the  theory^  that  unpreparedness  averts 
war,  had  been  willing  to  go  to  the  expense  of  providing 
a  fleet  of  a  score  of  ships  of  the  line.  However,  in  that 
case,  doubtless  the  very  men  who  in  the  actual  event 
deplored  the  loss  of  life  and  waste  of  capital  which  their 
own  supineness  had  brought  about  would  have  loudly  in- 
veighed against  the  "excessive  and  improper  cost  of  arma- 
ments" ;    so  it  all  came  to  about  the  same  tiling  in  the  end. 

There  is  no  more  thoroughgoing  international  Mrs. 
Gummidge,  and  no  more  utterly  useless  and  often  utterlj- 
mischievous  citizen,  than  the  peace-at-any-price,  universal- 
arbitration  type  of  being,  who  is  always  complaining  either 
about  war  or  else  about  the  cost  of  the  armaments  which 
act  as  the  insurance  against  war.  There  is  every  reason  why 
we  should  try  to  limit  the  cost  of  armaments,  as  these  tend 
to  grow  excessive,  but  there  is  also  every  reason  to  remember 

223 


% 


224    THl.ODORK    R()OSK\KLT  -  AN    AITOBIOGRAPHV 

that  in  the  present  stage  of  civilization  a  proper  armament  is 
the  surest  guarantee  of  peace  -  and  is  the  only  guarantee- 
that  war,  if  it  does  come,  will  not  mean  irreparable  and 
overwhelming  disaster.  . 

In  the  spring  of  1897  President  Mckinley  appointed  me 
Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Xavy.      I  owed  the  appointment 
chiefly  to  the  eflforts  of  Senator  H.  C.  Lodge  of  Massachusetts, 
who  doubtless  was  actuated  mainly  by  his  long  and  close 
friendship  for  me,  but  also  —  I  like  to  believe  —  by  his  keen 
interest  in  the  navy.     The  first  book  I  had  ever  published, 
fifteen  years  previously,  was  "The  History  of  the  Naval 
War  of  1812";  and  I  have  always  taken  the  interest  m  the 
navy    which    every    good    American    ought    to    take.     At 
the  time  I  wrote  the  book,  in  the  early  eighties,  the  navy  had 
reached  its  nadir,  and  we  were  then  utterly  incompetent  to 
fight  Spain  or  any  other  power  that  had  a  navy  at   all. 
Shortly  afterwards   we  began  timidly  and  hesitatingly  to 
build  up  a  fleet.      It  is  amusing  to  recall  the  roundabout 
steps  we  took  to  accomplish  our  purpose.     In  the  reaction 
after  the  colossal  struggle  of  the  Civil  War  our  strongest 
and  most  capable  men  had  thrown  their  whole  energy  into 
business,   into  money-making,   into  the  development,   and 
above  all  the  exploitation  and  exhaustion  at  the  most  rapid 
rate    possible,    of   our    natural    resources  —  mines,    forests, 
soil,  and  rivers.     These  men  were  not  weak  men,  but  they 
permitted    themselves    to    grow  shortsighted    and  selfish; 
and  while  manv  of  them  down  at  the  bottom  possessed  the 
fundamental  virtues,  including  the  fighting  virtues,  others 
were  purely  of  the  glorified  huckster  or  glorified  pawnbroker 
typt,_vvhich  when  developed   to  the  exclusion  of  every- 
thing else  makes  about  as  poor  a  national  type  as  the  world 
has  seen.     This  unadulterated  huckster  or  pawnbroker  type 
is  rarely  keenly  sympathetic  in  matters  of  social  and  indus- 
trial justice,  and  is  usually  physically   timid  and  likes  to 
cover  an  unworthy  fear  of  the  most  just  war  under  high- 
sounding  names. 

It  was  reiinforccd  by  the  large  mnllycoddle  vote  — the 
people  who  are  soft  physically  and  morally,  or  who  have  a 
twist  in  them  which  makes  them  acidly  cantankerous  and 


'rilK   WAR  OF   AMERICA  THE   IXREADV       225 


unpleasant  as  long  as  they  can  be  so  with  safety  to  their 
bodies.  In  addition  there  are  the  good  people  with  no 
imagination  and  no  foresight,  who  think  war  will  not  conn-, 
but  that  if  it  does  come  armies  and  navies  can  be  improvised 
—  a  very  large  element,  typified  by  a  Senator  I  knew  per- 
sonally who,  in  a  public  speech,  in  answer  to  a  question  as 
to  what  we  would  do  if  America  were  suddenly  assailed  by  a 
first-class  military  power,  answered  that  "we  would  build 
a  battle-ship  in  every  creek."  Then,  among  the  wise  and 
high-minded  people  who  in  self-respecting  and  genuine 
fashion  strive  earnestly  for  peace,  there  are  the  foolish 
fanatics  always  to  be  found  in  such  a  movement  and  always 
discrediting  it  —  the  men  who  form  the  lunatic  fringe  in  all 
reform  movements. 

All  these  elements  taken  together  made  a  body  of  public 
opinion  so  important  during  the  decades  immediately  suc- 
ceeding the  Civil  War  as  to  put  a  stop  to  any  serious  effort  to 
keep  the  Nation  in  a  condition  of  reasonable  n.Jitary  pre- 
paredness. The  representatives  of  this  opinion  then  voted 
just  as  they  now  do  when  they  vote  against  battle-ships 
or  against  fortifying  the  Panama  Canal.  It  would  have 
been  bad  enough  if  we  had  been  content  to  be  weak,  and, 
in  view  of  our  weakness,  not  to  bluster.  But  we  were 
not  content  with  such  a  policy.  We  wished  to  enjoy  the 
incompatible  luxuries  of  an  unbridled  tongue  and  an  un- 
ready hand.  There  was  a  very  large  element  which  was 
ignorant  of  our  militarj-  weakness,  or,  naturally  enough, 
unable  to  understand  it ;  and  another  large  element  which 
liked  to  please  its  own  vanity  by  listening  to  offensive  talk 
about  foreign  nations.  Accordingly,  too  many  of  our 
politicians,  especially  in  Congress,  found  that  the  cheap 
and  easy  thing  to  do  was  to  please  the  foolish  peace  people 
by  keeping  us  weak,  and  to  please  the  foolish  violent  people 
by  passing  denunciatory  resolutions  about  international 
matters  —  resolutions  which  would  have  been  improper 
even  if  we  had  been  strong.  Their  idea  was  to  please  both 
the  mollycoddle  vote  and  the  vote  of  the  international  tail- 
twisters  by  upholding,  with  pretended  ardor  and  mean 
intelligence,  a  National  policy  of  peace  with  insult. 


226    THKOnoRK    ROOSI'A  Kl/I"  -  A\    Al  "lOMIOCRAPHV 


''.L- 


I  abhor  unjust  war.  I  ablior  iujuslicc  and  lujllying  by 
the  strong  at  the  cxpi-nsc of  llu'  wiak,  vvhethi-r  among  nations 
or  individuals.  I  abhor  \  iolc-nct-  and  bloodslicd.  I  bt- 
Hevc  that  war  should  never  be  resorted  to  wiien,  or  so  long 
as,  it  is  honorably  possible  to  avoid  it.  1  respect  all  men 
and  women  who  from  high  motives  and  with  sanity  and 
selt-.espect  do  all  they  can  to  avert  war.  I  advocate  prep- 
aration for  war  in  order  to  avert  war;  and  I  should  never 
advocate  war  unless  it  were  the  only  alternative  to  dis- 
honor. I  describe  the  folly  of  which  so  many  of  our  people 
were  formerly  guilty,  in  order  that  we  may  in  our  own  day 
be  on  our  guard  against  similar  folly. 

We  did  not  at  the  time  of  which  I  write  take  our  loreign 
duties  seriously,  and  as  we  combined  bluster  in  speech 
with  refusal  to  make  any  preparation  whatsoever  for 
action,  we  were  not  taken  seriously  in  return.  (Iradually 
a  slight  change  for  the  better  occurred,  the  writings  of  Cap- 
lain  Mahan  playing  no  small  part  therein.  We  built  some 
modern  cruisers  to  start  with;  the  people  who  felt  that 
battle-ships  were  wicked  compromising  with  their  mis- 
guided consciences  by  saying  that  the  cruisers  could  be 
used  "to  protect  our  commerce"  -which  they  could  not 
be,  unless  they  had  battle-ships  to  back  them.  Then  wc 
attempted  to  build  more  powerful  fighting  vessels,  and  as 
there  was  a  section  of  the  public  which  regarded  battle- 
ships as  possessing  a  name  immorally  suggestive  of  violence, 
we  comprf)mised  by  calling  the  new  ships  armored  cruisers, 
and  making  them  combine  with  exquisite  nicety  all  the 
defects  and  none  of  the  virtues  of  both  types.  Then  we  got 
to  the  point  of  building  battle-ships.  But  there  still  re- 
mained a  public  opinion,  as  old  as  the  time  of  Jefferson, 
which  thought  that  in  the  event  of  war  all  our  problem  ought 
to  be  one  of  coast  defense,  that  we  should  do  nothing  except 
i-epel  attack  ;  an  attitude  about  as  sensible  as  that  of  a  prize- 
fighter who  expected  to  win  by  merely  parrying  instead  of 
hitting.  To  meet  the  susceptibilities  of  this  large  class  of 
well-meaning  people,  we  provided  for  the  battle-ships 
under  the  name  of  "coast  defense  battle-ships" ;  meaning 
thereb\    that  we  did  not  make  them  quite  as  seaworthy  as 


THE  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE   UNREADY       227 

they  ought  to  have  been,  or  with  quite  as  much  coal  capacity 
as  they  ought  to  have  had.  Then  we  decided  to  build  real 
battle-ships.  But  there  still  remained  a  lingering  remnant 
of  public  opinion  that  clung  to  the  coast  defense  theory, 
and  we  met  this  in  beautiful  fashion  by  providing  for  "sea- 
going coast  defense  battle-ships"  —  the  fact  that  the  name 
was  a  contradiction  in  terms  being  of  very  small  conse- 
quence compared  to  the  fact  that  we  did  thereby  get  real 
battle-ships. 

Oiir  men  had  to  be  trained  to  handle  the  ships  singly 
and  in  fleet  formation,  and  they  had  to  K  trained  to  use  the 
new  weapons  of  precision  with  which  the  ships  were  armed. 
Not  a  few  of  the  older  oflicers,  kept  in  the  service  under  our 
foolish  rule  of  pure  seniority  promotion,  were  not  competent 
for  the  l.isk;  but  a  proportion  of  the  older  oflicers  were 
excellent,  and  this  was  true  of  almost  all  the  jounger  officers. 
The>-  were  naturally  flrst-class  men,  trained  iii  the  admirable 
naval  school  at  Annapolis.  They  were  overjoyed  that  at 
last  they  were  given  proper  instruments  to  work  with,  and 
they  speedily  grew  to  handle  these  ships  individually  in 
the  best  fashion.  They  were  fast  learning  to  handle  them 
in  squadron  and  fleet  formation;  but  when  the  war  with 
Spain  broke  out,  they  had  as  yet  hardly  grasped  the  prin- 
ciples of  modern  scientific  naval  gunnery. 

Soon  after  I  began  work  as  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Xavy 
I  became  convinced  that  the  war  would  come.  The  revolt 
in  Cuba  had  dragged  its  weary  length  until  conditions  in 
the  island  had  become  so  dreadful  as  to  be  a  nding  dis- 
grace to  us  for  permitting  them  to  exist.  There  i;.  .nuch  that 
I  sincerely  admire  about  the  Spanish  character;  and  there 
are  few  men  for  whom  I  have  felt  greater  respect  than  for 
certain  gentlemen  of  Spain  whom  I  have  known.  But 
Spain  attempted  to  govern  her  colonies  on  archaic  principles 
which  rendered  her  control  of  them  incompatible  with  the 
advance  of  humanity  and  intolerable  to  the  conscience  of 
mankind.  In  1898  the  so-called  war  in  Cuba  had  dragged 
along  for  years  with  unspe;ik;!b!f  hon-Mr,  (lrgrad;\lii>n,  aiul 
misery.  It  was  not  "war"  at  all,  but  murderous  oppres- 
sion.    Cuba  was  devastated. 


228    THLODORK    ROOSE\  ELT  —  AiN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


During  those  years,  while  we  continued  at  "peace,"  several 
hundred  times  as  many  lives  were  lost,  lives  of  men,  women, 
and  children,  as  were  lost  during  the  three  months'  "war" 
which  put  an  end  to 'this  slaughter  and  opened  a  career  of 
peaceful  progress  to  the  Cubans.  Vet  there  were  misguided 
professional  philanthropists  who  cared  so  much  more  for 
names  than  for  facts  that  they  preferred  a  "peace"  of  con- 
tinuous murder  to  a  "war"  which  stopped  the  murder  and 
brought  real  peace.  Spain's  humiliation  was  certain,  any- 
how;  indeed,  it  was  more  certain  without  war  than  with  it, 
for  she  could  not  permanently  keep  the  island,  and  she 
minded  yielding  lo  the  Cubans  more  than  yielding  to 
us.  Our  own  direct  interests  were  great,  because  of 
the  Cuban  tobacco  and  sugar,  and  especially  because  of 
Cuba's  relation  to  the  projected  Isthmian  canal.  But  even 
greater  were  our  interests  from  the  standpoint  of  humanity. 
Cuba  was  at  our  very  doors.  It  was  a  dreadful  thing  for 
us  to  sit  supinely  and  watch  her  death  agony.  It  was  our 
duty,  even  more  from  the  standpoint  of  National  honor 
than  from  the  standpoint  of  National  interest,  to  stop  the 
devastation  and  destruction.  Because  of  these  considera- 
tions I  favored  war;  and  tf)-day,  when  in  retrospect  it  is 
easier  to  see  things  clearly,  there  are  few  humane  and  honor- 
able men  who  do  not  believe  that  the  war  was  both  just  and 
necessary. 

The  big  Hnanciers  and  the  men  generally  who  were  sus- 
ceptible to  touch  on  the  money  nerve,  and  who  cared  nothing 
for  National  honor  if  it  conflicted  even  temporarily  with 
business  prosperity,  were  against  the  war.  The  more  fatu- 
ous type  of  piiilanthropist  agreed  with  them.  The  news- 
papers controlled  by.  or  run  in  the  interests  of,  these  two 
classes  deprecated  war,  and  did  everything  in  their  power  to 
prevent  any  preparation  for  war.  As  a  whole  the  people  in 
Congriss  were  at  that  time  (and  are  now)  a  shortsighted  set 
as  regards  international  matters.  There  were  a  few  inen. 
Senators  Cusliniaii  K.  I)a\is.'  for  instance,  and  John  .Morgan, 

'  III  1  Ic-ttcr  wiiltin  iiir  |u.-t  lirlciit-  1  l)i-c;iiiic  Assistant  Secretary,  Senator  Davis 
iiiilMirileneil  his  mind  abcnil  i>iie  of  the  f<)r)lish.  "peace"  prnpnsals  nf  that  period; 
his  Idler  ruunini;  in  pari:    "1  left  ihc  Senate  Chamber  about  lliree  u'cl<«.k  lliib 


'.  '■^M 


('<ip>rlK)ii  i>)  I  liimliiini 

Mr.  Roosevelt  at  his  Dksk  wiikn  Assistant  .Sk  rftakv  of  tiii    N'a\  v. 


2?o     niKODORK    KOOSFAKI/r       AN    AiroBKKJRAPIIV 

wlioilid  look  ;iluMii;  ;iiul  Si-iiator  II.  C  Lodjjr,  who  tliroiigli- 
oul  his  qiiarttr  n|  a  cctitury  of  scrvici'  in  tin-  Senate-  ami 
House  has  e\er  stood  foremost  among  those  who  uphold 
with  farsighted  fearlessness  and  strict  justice  to  others 
our  national  honor  and  interest ;  but  most  of  the  Congressmen 
were  content  to  follow  the  worst  of  all  possible  courses, 
that  IS,  to  pass  resolutions  which  made  war  more  likely,  and 
yc*^  to  decline  to  take  measures  which  would  enable  us  to 
meet  the  war  if  it  did  come. 

However,  in  the  \a\  \  Department  we  were  able  to  do  a 
good  deal,  th.tiks  to  the  energy  and  ability  of  some  of  the 
bureau  chiefs,  and  to  the  general  good  tone  of  the  service. 
I  soon  found  my  natural  friends  and  allies  in  such  men  as 
Kvans,  Taylor,  Sampson,  W'ainwright,  Brownson,  Schroeder, 
Bradford,  Cowles.  Cameron  Winslow.  O'Xeil,  and  others 
like  them.  I  used  all  the  power  there  was  in  mv  office  to 
aid  these  men  in  getting  the  material  ready.  I  also  tried  to 
gather  Irom  every  source  information  as'  to  who  the  best 
men  were  to  occupy  the  fighting  positions. 

Sound  naval  opinion  was  o\erwhelmingly  in  favor  of 
Dewe>-  to  command  one  squadron.  I  was  already  watching 
him,  for  I  had  been  struck  by  an  incident  in  his  past  career. 
It  was  at  a  time  when  there  was  threat  of  trouble  with  Chile. 
Dewey  was  ofT  the  Argentine,  and  was  told  to  get  ready  to 
nio\  to  the  other  coast  of  South  .\merica.  If  the  move 
became  necessary,  he  would  have  to  have  coal,  and  yet  if  he 

aftiTiioon  when  thiTi-  was  i;..iiii.r  ,,„  ;,  J^..,]  |,f  „„,wini;  and  cliattvrini.'  ovor  The  troatv 
In-  which  tin-  I  Miti-a  Stati-s  is  to  be  bound  to  arbitrate  its  sovi-rciLMi  functions  -'- 
for  pohcios  arc  matters  .)f  sovcrciirnty.  .  .  .  The  aberrations  of  the  social  move- 
ment are  neitiier  prouress  nor  retroiirossioii.  Thev  represent  rnerel\-  a  local  and 
temporary  sai;L'inL'  of  the  Utic  of  the  treat  orbit.  Tennvson  knew 'this  when  he 
wrote  that  hnc  and  noble  -Maud.'  I  often  read  it.  for  to  do  so  d,.es  me  px)d  " 
A  ter  quotmi;  one  of  I'oe's  stories  the  letter  continues  :  ••The  world  will  emu-  out 
all  ni.'ht.  Let  him  who  believes  in  the  decline  of  the  militarv  spirit  observe  the 
Iwys  of  a  common  school  duririL'  the  recess  or  the  noon  hour.  Of  course  when 
-American  patriotism  speaks  o  it  from  its  rank  and  tile  and  demands  action  or  e.v- 
pression  and  when.thereupon.  the  •business  man,'  so  called,  places  his  hand  on 
his  stack  of  reds  as  if  he  fea'-ed  ,.  policeman  were  about  to  disturb  the  pame.  and 
protests  until  .\merican  patriotism  ceases  to  continue  to  speak  as  it  h-id  started  to 
do  —  why,  you  and  1  pet  mad.  and  I  swear.  I  hope  you  will  be  with  lis  here  after 
March  4.  We  can  then  pass  judirment  together  on  the  things  we  don't  like,  and 
toj>etlier  induli;e  in  hopes  that  I  believe  are  prophetic." 


THK   WAR  OF   AMERICA    THE   UNREADY        231 


13 


did  not  make  the  move,  the  Loal  would  not  be  needed.  In 
such  a  case  a  man  afraid  of  responsibility  always  acts  rigidly 
by  the  regulations  and  communicates  with  the  Department 
at  home  to  get  authority  for  ever\thing  he  does  ;  and  there- 
fore he  usually  accomplishes  nothing  whatever,  but  is  able 
to  satisfy  all  individuals  with  red-tape  minds  by  trium- 
phantly pointing  out  his  compliance  with  the  regulations. 
In  a  crisis,  the  man  worth  his  salt  is  the  man  who  meets 
the  needs  of  the  situation  in  whatever  wa\-  is  necessary. 
Dewey  purchased  the  coal  and  was  ready  to  move  at  once  if 
need  arose.  The  affair  blew  over;  the  need  to  move  did 
not  occur;  and  for  some  time  there  seemed  to  be  a  chance 
that  Dewey  would  get  into  trouble  over  having  purchased 
the  coal,  for  our  people  are  like  almost  all  other  peoplesin 
requiring  responsible  officers  under  such  conditions  to  decide 
at  their  own  personal  peril,  no  matter  which  course  the\' 
follow.  However,  the  people  higher  up  ultimately  stood  by 
Dewey. 

The  incident  made  me  feel  that  here  was  a  man  who  could 
be  relied  upon  to  prepare  in  advance,  and  to  act  promptly, 
fearlessly,  and  on  his  own  responsibilitx'  when  the  emer- 
gency arose.  Accordingly  I  did  my  best  to  get  him  put  in 
command  of  the  Asiatic  'fleet,  the  fleet  where  it  was  most 
essential  to  have  a  man  who  would  act  without  referring 
things  back  to  the  home  authorities.  An  officer  senior  to 
him,  of  the  respectable  commonplace  type,  was  being  pushed 
by  certain  politicians  who  I  knew  had  influence  with  the 
Xavy  Department  and  with  the  President.  I  would  have 
preferred  to  see  Dewey  gel  tlie  appointment  without  appeal- 
ing to  any  politician  at  all.  But  wliile  this  was  m\-  pref- 
erence, the  essential  thing  was  to  get  him  the  appointment. 
For  a  naval  officer  to  bring  pressure  to  get  himself  a  soft 
and  easy  place  is  unpardonable;  but  a  large  leniency  should 
be  observed  toward  the  man  who  uses  influence  only  to 
get  himself  a  place  in  the  picture  near  the  flashing  of  the 
guns.  There  was  a  Senator.  Proetor  of  \ermont.  who  I 
knew  was  close  t<^  Mi  KinK'v.  and  who  was  xerx  ardentfor 
the  war.  and  desirous  to  have  it  fought  in  the  most  elficieni 
fashion.      1    suggestt'd   to   Dewt-)    that   he  should  enlist    the 


I 


232     THl'ODORK    ROOSKN  KLT- AN    ALTOBKX.RAPHV 


'U 


services  of  Senator  Proctor,  wl)ich  was  accordingly  done. 
In  a  fortunate  hour  for  the  Nation,  Dewey  was  given  com- 
mand of  the  Asiatic  squadron. 

When  the  Maine  was  blown  up  in  Havana  Harbor,  war 
became    inevitable.     A   number  of    the    peace-at-any-price 
men  of  course  promptly  assumed  the  position  that  she  had 
blown  herself  up;    but   investigation  showed   that  the  ex- 
plosion   was   from  outside.     And,  in   any   event,  it   would 
have  been  impossible  to  prevent  war.     The  enlisted  men  of 
the  navy,  who  often  grew  bored  to  the  point  of  desertion 
in  peace,  became  keyed  up  to  a  high  pitch  of  efficiency,  and 
crowds  of  fine  young  fellows,  from  the  interior  as  well  as 
from   the  seacoast,   thronged  to  enlist.     The  navy  officers 
showed  alert  ability  and  unwearied  industry  in  getting  things 
ready.     There  was  one  deficiency,  however,  which  there  was 
no  time   to  remedy,  and  of  the   very  existence  of  which, 
strange    to    say,    most    of   our    best    men    were    ignorant. 
Our  navy  had   no  idea   how  low  our  standard    of  marks- 
manship   was.     We    had    not    realized    that    the    modern 
battle-ship     had     become    such    a     complicated     piece    of 
mechanism    that    the  old   methods  of  training   in    marks- 
manship were  as  obsolete  as  the  old  muzzle-loading  broadside 
guns  themselves.     Almost  the  only  man  in  the  navy  who 
fully  realized  this  was  our  naval  attache  at  Paris,  Lieutenant 
Sims.     He  wrote  letter  after  letter  pointing  out  how  fright- 
full\    backward   we  were   in   marksmanship.      I   was   much 
impressed   by  his  letters;    but  Waiiiwright  was  about    the 
only  other  man  wlio  was.     And  as  Sims  proved  to  be  mis- 
taken in  his  belief  that  the  Frencl.  had  taught  the  Spaniards 
how  to  shoot,  and  as  the  Spaniards  proved  to  be  much  worse 
even  than  we  wen-,  in  the  service  generally  Sims  was  treated 
as  an  alarmist.      But  although   I  at  first  partly  acquiesced 
in  this  view,  f  L'lew  uneasy  wh<'n  I  studied  the  small  pro- 
portion ol  hits  I.,  shots  made  b_\  our  vessels  in  battle.     When 
I  was  President  I  took  up  the' matter,  and  speedilv  became 
convinced  that  wi'  needed  t<.  re\olutionize  our  whole  training 
in  iiiarksmaiiship.     Sims  was  given  the  lead  in  organizing 
and  introducing  the  new  system;    and  to  him  more  than  to 
any  other  one  man  was  due  the  astonishing  progress  made  by 


THK   WAR  or   AMKRICA  THE   L  NRKADV       233 


our  fleet  ill  this  respect,  a  progress  which  made  the  fleet, 
gun  for  gun,  al  least  three  times  as  eff'ective,  in  point  of 
fighting  efliciency,  in  KpH,  as  it  was  in  1902.  The  shots  that 
hit  are  the  shots  thai  count  ! 

Liiic  the  pecjple,  the  (jovernmetil  was  for  a  long  time  un- 
willing to  prepare  for  war,  because  so  many  honest  but  mis- 
guided men  believed  that  the  preparation  itself  tended  to 
bring  on  the  war.  I  did  not  in  the  least  share  this  feeling, 
and  whenever  I  was  left  as  Acting  Secretar)  I  did  everything 
in  my  power  to  put  us  in  readiness,  f  knew  that  in  the 
event  of  war  Dewey  could  be  slipped  like  a  wolf-hound  from 
a  leash;  1  was  sure  that  if  he  were  gi\en  half  a  chance  he 
would  strike  instantly  and  with  telling  eflPect ;  and  I  made  up 
my  mind  that  all  I  could  do  to  give  him  that  half-chance 
should  be  done.  I  was  in  the  closest  toucli  with  Senator 
Lodge  throughout  this  period,  and  either  consulted  him 
about  or  notified  him  of  all  the  moves  I  was  taking.  B\ 
the  end  of  P'ebruarv  I  felt  it  was  vital  to  send  Dewev  (as 
well  as  each  of  our  other  commanders  who  were  not  in  home 
waters)  instructions  that  wf)uld  enable  him  to  be  in  readiness 
for  immediate  action.  On  the  afternoon  of  Saturday, 
February  25,  when  I  was  .\cling  Secretary,  Lodge  called  on 
me  just  as  I  was  preparing"  the  order,  which  (as  it  was 
addressed  to  a  man  of  the  right  stamp)  was  of  much  impor- 
tance to  the  subsequent  operations.  Admiral  Dtwey 
speaks  of  the  incident  as  follows,  in  his  autobiography  : 

"The  first  real  step  [as  regards  acti\e  naval  preparations] 
was  taken  on  February  25,  when  telegraphic  instructions 
were  sent  to  the  Asiatic,  Kuropi'an,  and  South  .\tlaiitic 
squadrons  to  rendezvous  at  certain  convenient  points 
where,  should  war  break  out,  tiiev  would  be  most  avail- 
able. 

"The  message  to  the  Asiatic  squadron  bore  the  signaturi' 
of  that  Assistant  Seciviarv  who  iiad  >ei/.ed  llu-  opportunit\- 
while  Acting  Secretary  lo  hasten  pri'parat ions  for  a  conflict 
which  was  iiiexitable.  As  Mr.  Roosexe't  na^onrd.  pix- 
cautions  for  readiness  would  cost  little  in  time  of  peace,  and 
yet  would  be  invaluable  in  case  of  war.  Mis  cablegram 
was  as  follows  ; 


2?4     f'HKODORK    R(K)SK\  KL'I' -  AN    ArTOBKKIRAPHV 


"  '  \\  ashinKtiin.  I'L-bruarv  iH,  '<*8. 

"'OrdiT  the  s».|ii;i(.ln)ii,  cxcrpt  tin-  Monocacy,  to  Hon^ 
koiij;.  Kri'p  full  of  (.oal.  In  tlu-  (.■vent  of  ck-claration  of 
war  Spain,  Noiirdul)  will  In-  to  soi-  that  thf  Spanish  squatlron 
iUh's  not  k-avf  the  Asiatic  i-oast,  and  then  oflVnsivc  opera- 
tions in  Philippine  Islands.  Keep  Olympia  until  further 
orders.  Rooskvki.t.' 

"('I'he  reference  to  keeping;  the  ()l\nipia  until  further 
orders  was  due  to  the  fact  that  I  had  been  notified  that  she 
would  soon  be  recalled  to  the  Iniled  States.)" 

All  that  was  ne«ued  with  Dewey  was  to  givv  hint  the 
chance  to  j:et  ready,  and  then  to  strike,  without  being 
hampered  b}  orders  from  those  not  on  the  ),'round.  Success 
in  war  depends  very  largely  upon  choosing  a  man  fit  to 
exercise  such  powers,  and  then  gi\ing  him  the  powers. 

It  would  be  instructive  to  remember,  if  only  we  were 
willing  to  do  so,  the  fairl)  comic  panic  which  swept  in 
waves  over  our  seacoast,  first  when  it  became  evident  that 
war  was  about  to  be  declared,  and  then  when  it  \va.s 
declared.  The  public  waked  up  to  the  sufficiently  obvious 
fact  that  the  (lovernmer'  was  in  its  usual  state  -  perennial 
unreadiness  for  war.  Thereupon  the  people  of  the  seaboard 
district  passed  at  one  bound  from  unreasoning  confidence 
that  war  ne\er  could  come  lo  unreasoning  fear  as  to  what 
might  happen  now  that  it  liad  come.  'Chat  acute  philoso- 
pher Mr.  Dook'v  proclaimed  that  in  the  Spanish  War  we  were 
in  a  dream,  but  that  the  Spaniards  were  in  a  trance.  This 
just  about  summed  up  the  facts.  Our  people  had  for  decades 
scoffed  at  the  thought  of  making  read\-  for  possible  war. 
Now,  when  it  was  tf)o  late,  the)-  not  only  backed  every 
measure,  wise  and  unwise,  that  f)fFered  a  chance  of  supplving 
a  need  that  ought  to  ha\e  been  met  before,  but  they  also 
fell  into  a  condition  of  panic  apprehension  as  to  what  the 
foe   might    do. 

I'or  jears  we  had  been  sa>  ing,  just  a;>  any  number  of  our 
peopU-  now  say,  that  no  nation  would  venture  to  attack 
us.     Then    when    wc   did   go   to   war   with    an   e.\ceedingl\ 


rill    \v\K  oi    wii  RK  \   rill    r\kr.\nv 


2.15 


ffi'hif    li.llinii,   uc,    led'    till-   lime    luiiiL'.   I'll  '<»    tllf  utliiT 

I'Xtn'iiu'    III    ficjiii^'.    ;iiul    .ii  uiluitcj    i..    t  i-hlc    nation 

plans  (il  ()fFc'n>i\ <•  wail.m  uliicli  it  iii\tr  dreamed  of 
inakiiijr.  and  wliicli,  il  made,  it  uoiild  lia\e  luni  wholly 
uiiabU-  to  execute.  Some  of  my  readers  doubtless  remember 
the  sinister  intentions  and  unlimitetl  potentialities  for  de- 
struction with  which  the  fertileima^i  nation  of  the  \  el  low  press 
endowed  the  armored  cruiser  \  isca\  a  when  she  appeared 
in  .\merican  waters  just  before  war  was  tleclared.  The 
state  of  nervousness  alonj;  much  of  the  seacoast  was  funny 
in  view  of  the  lack  of  foundation  for  it  ;  but  it  offeretl  food  for 
serious  lhouj;ht  as  to  what  would  happen  il  we  e\er  became 
enj:aj;ed  with  a  seri»)us  foe. 

The  (io\ernor  of  one  State  actuall\  announc'd  that  he 
would  not  permit  the  National  (luard  of  that  State  to  leave 
its  borders,  the  idea  beinj;  to  ritain  it  against  a  possible 
Spanish  invasion.  So  many  of  the  business  men  of  the  city 
of  Boston  took  their  securities  inland  to  Worcester  that  the 
safe  deposit  companies  of  WOrcester  proved  unable  to  take 
care  of  them.  In  m>'  own  neighborhood  on  l.onir  Island 
clauses  were  gravel)  put  into  leases  to  tlu'  effect  that  If  the 
property  were  destroyed  b\'  the  Sf^anianls  the  leasi'  shduld 
lapse.  .\s  Assistant  Secri'tarv  ol  the  .\a\y  I  luul  i\iry 
conceivable  impossible  request  made  to  me.  Members  of 
Congress  who  had  acti\ely  opposed  building  any  na\  \' 
came  clamorously  around  to  ask  each  for  a  >hi|>  for  .some 
special  purpose  of  protection  connectei.1  with  his  ilistrict. 
It  seems  incredible,  but  it  is  true,  that  not  only  these  Con- 
gressmen but  the  Chambers  of  Commerce  and  Boards  of 
Trade  of  different  coast  cities  all  lost  tluir  heads  lor  tiu'  time 
being,  and  raised  a  ileafening  clamor  and  bn. light  e\er_\- 
species  of  pressure  to  bear  on  the  Administration  to  gi ;  it  to 
adopt  the  one  most  fatal  course  -that  is,  to  tlist  ributi'  tlu- 
navy,  ship  by  sliip,  at  all  kinds  of  points  anti  in  all  kinds  of 
ports  with  the  idea  of  protecting  e\  cry  thing  e\er\  where, 
anJ  thereby  rendering  it  absolutel\-  certain  that  even  the 
Spanish  fleet,  pool  though  II  vva>,  would  be-  able  to  pick  up 
our  own  navy  ship  by  ship  in  detail.  One  Congressman 
besought  me  for  a  ship  to  protect  jekyll  Island,  off  tiie  coast 


1M 


'.}(>    TTIKODORF.    RO()SK\  I'l/P  -    A\    AITOBIOCRAPIIY 


» 


of  (ii'orgia,  an  island  uhicli  ilirivcd  its  sole  consequence 
Incause  it  contained  tlie  winter  lii>nies  of  certain  millionaires. 
A  lady  whose  liiisbanil  occiipieil  a  very  intlncntial  position, 
and  wlio  was  normally  a  most  ailmirahle  ami  sensible  woman, 
came  to  insist  that  a  ship  should  be  anchored  off  a  huge  sea- 
side hotel  because  she  had  a  house  in  the  neighborhood. 

There  were  many  such  instances.  One  stood  out  above 
the  others.  A  certain  seaboard  Stale  contained  in  its  Con- 
gressional delegation  one  of  the  most  influential  men  in 
the  Senate,  and  one  of  the  most  influential  men  in  the  lower 
house.  These  two  men  had  been  worse  than  lukewarm 
about  building  up  the  navy,  and  had  scoffed  at  the  idea  of 
there  ever  being  any  danger  from  any  foreign  power.  With 
the  advent  of  war  the  feelings  of  their  constituents,  and  there- 
fore their  own  feelings,  suffered  an  immediate  change,  and 
they  demanded  that  a  ship  be  anchored  in  the  harlxir  of  their 
city  as  a  protection.  (letting  no  comfort  from  me,  they 
went  "higher  up,"  and  became  a  kind  of  permanent  com- 
mittee in  attendance  upon  the  President.  They  were 
very  influential  men  in  the  Houses,  with  whom  it  was  im- 
portant for  the  Administration  to  keep  on  good  terms; 
and,  moreover,  they  possessed  a  pertinacity  as  great  as 
the  widow  who  won  her  case  from  the  unjust  judge.  Finally 
the  President  gave  in  and  notified  me  to  see  that  a  ship 
was  sent  to  the  cit\-  in  question.  I  was  bound  that,  as  long 
as  a  ship  luul  to  be  si-nt,  it  should  not  be  a  ship  worth  an\- 
thing.  Accordingly  a  C"i\  il  W  ar  Monitor,  with  one  smooth- 
bori'  gun,  maiinei.1  by  a  crew  of  about  twenty-one  naval 
militia,  was  sent  to  tlie  city  in  question,  under  coinoy  of  a 
tug.  It  was  a  hazardous  trip  for  the  unfortunate  naval 
militiamen,  but  it  was  safel\  accomplished;  and  joy  and 
peace  descended  upon  the  Senator  and  the  Congressman, 
and  upon  the  President  whom  they  had  jointly  harassed. 
Incidentally,  the  fact  that  the  protecting  war-vessel  would 
not  have  been  a  formidable  (ov  to  an\-  antagonists  of  much 
more  modern  construction  than  the  galleys  of  Alcibiadcs 
seemed  to  disturb  nobody. 

This  was  one  side  of  the  picture.  The  other  side  was  that 
the  crisis  at  once  brought  to  the  front  any  amount  of  latent 


THE   WAR  OK  AMERICA  THE   UNREADY       237 

fighting  strength.  There  were  plenty  of  Congressmen 
who  showed  cool-headed  wisdom  and  resolution.  The 
plain  people,  the  men  and  women  back  of  the  persons  who 
lost  their  heads,  set  seriously  to  work  to  see  that  we  did 
whatever  was  necessary,  and  made  the  job  a  thorough  one. 
The  young  men  swarmed  to  enlist.  In  time  of  peace  it  had 
been  difficult  to  fill  the  scanty  regular  army  and  navy, 
and  there  were  innumerable  desertions;  now  the  ships 
and  regiments  were  over-enlisted,  and  so  many  deserters 
returned  in  order  to  fight  that  it  became  difficult  to  decide 
what  to  do  with  them.  England,  and  to  a  less  degree 
Japan,  were  friendly.  The  great  powers  of  Continental 
Europe  were  all  unfriendly.  They  jeered  at  our  ships  and 
men,  and  with  fatuous  partisanship  insisted  that  the 
Spaniards  would  prove  too  much  for  our  "mercenaries" 
because  we  were  a  commercial  people  of  low  ideals  who 
could  not  fight,  while  the  men  vvliom  we  attempted  to  hire 
for  that  purpose    -ere  certain  to  run  on  the  day  of  battle. 

Among  my  fn  Is  was  the  then  Army  Surgeon  Leonard 
Wood.  He  was  a  surgeon.  Xot  having  an  income,  he  had 
to  earn  his  own  living.  He  iiad  gone  through  the  Harvard 
Medical  School,  and  had  then  joined  the  army  in  the  South- 
west as  a  contract  doctor.  lie  had  every  physical,  moral, 
and  mental  quality  which  fitted  him  for  a  soldier's  life  and 
for  the  exercise  of  command.  In  the  inconceivably  wearing 
and  harassing  campaigns  against  the  Apaches  he  had  served 
nominally  as  a  surgeon,  really  in  command  of  troops,  on 
more  than  one  expedition.  He  was  as  anxious  as  I  was 
that  if  there  were  war  we  should  both  have  our  part  in  it. 
I  had  always  felt  that  if  there  were  a  serious  war  I  wished 
to  be  in  a  position  to  explain  to  my  children  why  I  did  lake 

Fart  in  it,  and  not  why  I  did  not  take  part  in  it.  .Moreover, 
had  very  deeply  felt  that  it  was  our  dut\  to  free  Cuba, 
and  I  had  publicly  expressed  this  feeling;  and  when  a  man 
takes  such  a  position,  he  ought  to  be  willing  to  make  his 
words  good  by  his  tleeds  unless  tlien-  is  sonie  very  strong 
reason  to  the  contrary.     He  should  pay  with  his  bod\ . 

As  soon  as  war  was  upon  us,  WOod  and  I  began  to  try 
for  a  chance  to  go  to  the  front.     Congress  had  authorized 


238   rilKODORE    ROOSK\  Ei;r  -  A.N    ALTOBIOGRAPHV 


the  raising  of  three  National  Volunteer  Cavalry  regiments, 
wholly  apart  from  the  State  contingents.     Secretary  .Alger 
of  the  War  Department  was  fond  of  nie  personally,  and  Wood 
was  his  family  doctor.     .Mger  had  been  a  gallant  soldier  in 
the  Civil   War,  and   was  almost   the  onl\'   member  of  the 
Administration  who  felt  all  along  that  we  would  have  to  go 
to  war  with   Spain   over  Cuba.      He  liked   my   attitude   in 
the   matter,  and    because  of   his    remembrance  of   his  own 
experiences   he   sympathized   with    my  desire   to  go  to   the 
front.     .Xccordingl}-    he   offered    me    the    command    of   one 
of  the  regiments.      I  told  him  that  after  six  weeks'  service  in 
the  field    I    would   feel   competent   to  handle  the   regiment, 
but  that  I  would  not  know  how  to  equip  it  or  how  to  get  it 
into  the  first  action  ;   but  that  Wood  was  entirel\-  competent 
at  once  to  take  command,  and  that  if  he  would  make  Wood 
colonel    I    would   accept   the   lieutenant-colotielcj'.     (jeneral 
Alger  thought  this  an  act  of  foolish  self-abnegation  on  my 
part        instead  of  its  being,  what   it  was,   the  wisest  act    I 
could  have  performed.      He  told  me  to  accept  the  colonelcy, 
and  that  he  would  make  Wood  lieutenant-colonel,  and  that 
Wood  would  do  the  work  anyway;    but  I  answered  that  I 
did  not  wish  to  rise  on  an_\-  man's  shoulders;    that  I  hoped 
to  be  given  every  chance  that  my  deeds  and  abilities  war- 
ranted;   but  that  \  did  not  wish  what  I  did  not  earn,  and 
that  above  all   I   did   not   wish  to  hold  any  position  where 
any  one  else  did  the  work.      He  laughed  at  me  a  little  and 
said  I  was  foolish,  but  F  d<>  not  think  he  really  minded,  and 
he  promised  to  do  as  I  wished.     True  to  his  word,  he  secured 
the  appointment  of  Wood  as  colonel  and  of  myself  as  lieuten- 
ant-colonel of  the   First   I'nited   States  X'olunteer  Cavalry. 
This  was  soon  nicknamed,  both  by  the  public  and  by  the 
rest  of  the  army,  the  Rough  Riders,  doubtless  because  the 
bulk  of  the  men  were  from  the  Southwestern  ranch  country 
and  were  skilled  in  the  wild  horsemanship  of  the  great  plains. 
Wood  instantl)'  began  the  work  of  raising  the  regiment. 
He   first    assembled    several    old    ii'iii-cominissioned   officers 
ol  experience,  put  them  in  offici'.  and  gave-  them  blanks  for 
requisitions  for  the  full   equipment    of  a  ca\alr\'   regiment. 
Hi'    selected    San    .Vntonio    as    the    gathering-place,    as    it 


( utivrlsht  liv  Kalk 


I'lii:  C<)U)M  L  UK  nil    K'iii;ii  Kll>^Ks. 


240     riir.ODORK    ROOSEXKI/r  —  AN    AUrOBIOGRAPIIV 

was  in  a  good  liorsc  country,  near  the  Cnilf  from  some 
port  on  uliitli  we  would  liave  to  embark,  and  near 
an  old  arsenal  ami  an  old  ami)'  post  from  which  wc 
got  a  good  deal  of  stulf  some  ol  it  practically  con- 
denined,  hut  which  we  found  serviceable  at  a  pinch,  and 
much  better  than  nothing.  He  organized  a  horse  board  in 
Texas,  and  began  purchasing  all  horses  that  were  not  too 
big  and  were  sound.  A  Jay  or  two  after  he  commissioned  he 
wrote  out  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  under  his 
authority,  teleg'-ams  to  the  Governors  of  Arizona,  New 
Mexico,  Oklahoma,  and  Indian  Territory,  in  substance  as 
follows : 

The   President   desires   to    raise volunteers   in    your 

Territory  to  form  part  of  a  regiment  of  mounted  riflemen 
to  be  commanded  by  I.eonard  Wood,  Colonel ;  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  Lieutenant-Colonel.  He  desires  that  the  men 
selected  should  be  young,  sound,  good  shots  and  good 
riders,  and  that  you  expedite  by  aH  means  in  your  power 
t'ic  enrollment  of  these  men. 

(Signed)  R.  A.  Ai.ger,  Secretary  of  War. 

As  .soon  as  he  had  attended  to  a  few  more  odds  and  ends  he 
left  Washington,  and  the  day  after  his  arrival  in  San  .\ntonio 
the  troops  began  to  arrive. 

For  several  weeks  before  I  joined  the  regiment,  to  which 
Wood  went  ahead  of  me,  1  continued  as  Assistant  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  trying  to  get  some  coherence  of  plan  between 
the  War  Department  and  the  Navy  Department;  and  also 
being  used  by  Wood  to  finish  getting  the  equipment  for 
the  regiment.  .\s  regards  finding  out  what  the  plans  of  the 
War  Department  were,  the  task  was  simple.  They  had  no 
plans.  Even  during  th.'  final  months  before  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities  very  little  was  done  in  the  way  of  efficient  prep- 
aration. On  one  occasion,  when  every  one  knew  that  the 
declaration  of  war  was  sure  to  come  in  a  few  days,  T  went  on 
military  business  to  theofliceof  oneof  thehighestlinegenerals 
of  the  army,  a  man  who  at  that  moment  ought  to  have 
been  working  eighteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  on  the 


'IIIK   WAR   OK   AMKRlCA    IIIK   INRKADV       241 


vital  problems  ahead  of  him.  What  hv  was  actually  doing 
was  trying  on  a  new  type  of  sniart-lookinjj  uniform  on 
certain  enlisted  men;  and  lie  called  me  in  to  ask  my  advice 
as  to  the  position  of  the  pockets  in  the  blouse,  with  a  view 
to  making  it  look  attractive.  An  aide  of  this  general  — 
funnily  enough  a  go(jd  fighting  man  in  actual  service  —  when 
I  consulted  him  as  to  what  my  uniform  for  the  campaign 
should  be,  laid  special  stress  upon  my  purchasing  a  pair  of 
black  top  boots  ff)r  full  dress,  explaining  that  they  were 
very  effective  on  hotel  piazzas  and  in  parlors.  I  did  not 
inti'ud  to  be  in  any  hotel  if  it  could  possibly  be  avoided; 
and  as  things  turned  out.  1  had  no  full-uress  uniforjn,  nothing 
but  my  service  uniform,  during  my  brief  experience  in  the 
army. 

I  suppose  that  war  always  does  bring  out  what  is  highest 
and  lowest  in  human  nature.  Tlu-  contractors  who  furnish 
poor  materials  to  the  army  or  the  navy  in  time  of  war  stand 
on  a  level  of  infamy  only  one  degree  above  that  of  the  par- 
ticipants in  the  white  slave  traffic  themselves.  But  there 
is  conduct  far  short  of  this  which  \  et  seems  inexplicable 
to  any  man  who  has  in  him  any  spirit  of  disinterested 
patriotism  combined  with  any  power  of  imagination.  Re- 
spectable men,  who  I  suppose  lack  the  imagination  thoroughly 
to  realize  what  tht-y  are  doing,  try  to  make  money  out  of  the 
Nation's  necessities  in  war  at  the  very  time  that  other  men 
are  making  every  sacrifice,  financial  and  personal,  for  the 
cause.  In  the  closing  weeks  of  nu'  service  as  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  we  were  collecting  ships  for  auxiliary 
purposes.  Some  men,  at  cost  to  their  own  purses,  helped 
us  freely  and  with  efficienc\- ;  others  treated  the  affair  as 
an  ordinary  business  transaction  ;  and  yet  others  endeavored, 
at  some  given  crisis  when  our  need  was  great,  to  sell  us  in- 
ferior vessels  at  exorbitant  prices,  and  used  every  pressure, 
through  Senators  and  Congressmen,  to  accomplish  their 
ends.  In  oiu-  or  two  cases  they  did  accomplish  them  too, 
until  we  got  a  really  first-class  board  established  to  superin- 
tend such  purchases.  A  more  curious  experience  was  in 
connection  \\ith  the  point  chosen  for  the  starting  for  tlie 
expedition   against   Cuba.     I    had   not   supposed    that    any 


m 


^42    iiiKoDoKK  R()()si;\i:i;i'     an  ai  roBiocRAiMn 

luiinan  bfiuj;  could  omsidiT  tliis  matter  save  from  the  stand- 
point of  military  nt-cd.  But  one  morning  a  very  wealthy 
and  influential  man,  a  respectable  and  upright  man  accord- 
ing to  his  own  lights,  calledonme  to  protest  against  our  choice 
of  Tampa,  and  to  put  in  a  plea  for  a  certain  other  port, 
on  tin-  ground  that  his  railroad  :cas  entitlfd  to  its  share  of  the 
profit  for  hauling  the  army  and  equipment !  ^  I  happened  to 
know  tiiat  at  this  time  this  very  man  had  kinsfolk  with  the 
army,  who  served  gallantly,  and  the  circumstances  of  his 
coming  to  me  were  such  as  to  show  tiiat  he  was  not  acting 
secretly,  and  had  no  idea  that  there  was  anything  out  of 
the  way  in  his  proposal.  I  think  the  facts  were  merely  that 
he  had  been  trained  to  regard  business  as  the  sole  object  in 
life,  and  that  he  lacked  the  imagination  to  enable  him  to 
understand  the  real  nature  of  the  request  that  he  was 
making;  and,  moreover,  he  had  good  reason  to  believe 
that  one  of  his  business  competitors  had  been  unduly  favored. 
The  War  Department  was  in  far  worse  shape  than  the 
Navy  Department.  The  young  officers  turned  out  from 
West  Point  are  precisely  as  good  as  the  young  officers  turned 
out  from  Annapolis,  and  this  always  has  been  true.  But 
at  that  time  (something  has  been  done  to  remedy  the  worst 
conditions  since),  and  ever  since  the  close  of  the  Civil  War, 
the  conditions  were  such  that  after  a  few  years  the  army 
officer  stagnated  so  far  as  his  profession  was  concerned. 
When  the  Spanish  War  broke  out  the  navy  really  was  largely 
on  a  war  footing,  as  any  navy  which  is  even  respectably 
cared  for  in  time  of  peace  must  be.  The  admirals,  captains, 
and  lieutenants  were  continually  practicing  their  profession 
in  almost  precisely  the  way  that  it  has  to  be  practiced  in 
time  of  war.  Kxcept  actually  shooting  at  a  foe,  most  of  the 
men  on  board  ship  went  through  in  time  of  peace  practically 
all  that  they  would  have  to  go  through  in  time  of  war.  The 
heads  of  bureaus  in  the  Navy  Department  were  for  the  most 
part  men  who  had  seen  sea  service,  who  expected  to  return 
to  sea  service,  aud  who  were  preparing  for  needs  which  they 
themselves  knew  by  experience.  Moreover,  the  civilian 
head  of  the  navy  had  to  provide  for  keeping  the  ships  in  a 
state  of  reasonable  efficiencv,  and  Congress  could  not  hope- 


THIi   WAR  OF   AMIiRlCA  THE   UNREADY       243 

Icssly  misbehave  itself  about  the  navy  without  the  fact  at 
once  becoming  evident. 

All  this  was  changed  so  far  as  the  army  was  concerned. 
Not  only  was  it  possible  to  decrease  the  efficiency  of  the  army 
without  being  called  to  account  for  it,  hut  the  only  way  in 
which  the  Secretary  of  War  could  gain  credit  for  himself  or 
the  Administration  was  by  economy,  and  the  easiest  way  to 
economize  was  in  connection  with  something  that  would  not 
be  felt  unless  war  should  arise.  The  people  took  no  interest 
whatever  in  the  army ;  demagogues  clamored  against  it, 
and,  inadequate  though  it  was  in  size,  insisted  that  it  should 
be  still  further  reduced.  I'opular  orators  always  appealed 
to  the  volunteers;  the  regulars  had  no  votes  and  there  was 
no  point  in  politicians  thinking  of  them.  The  chief  activity 
shown  by  Congressmen  about  the  army  was  in  getting  special 
army  posts  built  in  places  where  there  was  no  need  for  them. 
Even  the  work  of  the  army  in  its  campaigns  against  the 
Indians  was  f)f  such  a  character  that  it  was  generally  per- 
formed by  small  bodies  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  men.  Until  a 
man  ceased  being  a  lieutenant  he  usually  had  plenty  of  pro- 
fessional work  to  attend  to  and  was  employed  in  the  field, 
and,  in  short,  had  the  same  kind  of  practice  that  his  brother 
in  the  navy  had,  and  he  did  his  work  as  well.  But  once  past 
this  stage  he  had  almost  no  opportunity  to  perform  any  work 
corresponding  to  his  rank,  and  but  little  opportunity  to 
do  any  military  work  whatsoever.  The  very  best  men, 
men  like  Uawton,  Young,  Chaffee,  Hawkins,  and  Sumner, 
to  mention  only  men  under  or  beside  whom  I  served,  re- 
mained good  soldiers,  soldiers  of  the  best  stamp,  in  spite  of 
the  disheartening  conditions.  But  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  the  average  man  could  continue  to  grow  when  every 
influence  was  against  him.  Accordingly,  when  the  Spanish 
War  suddenly  burst  upon  us,  a  number  of  inert  elderly 
captains  and  field  officers  were,  much  against  their  own 
wishes,  suddenly  pitchforked  into  the  command  of  regiments, 
brigades,  and  even  divisions  and  arni>  corps.  Oftiii  these 
men  failed  painfully.  This  was  no!  their  fault  :  it  \va-;  the 
fault  of  the  Nation,  that  is,  the  fault  of  all  of  us,  of  you,  my 
reader,  and  of  myself,  and  of  those  like  us.  because  we  had 


244     rilliODORl-;    ROOSlAKL'i-    AN    Al  TOBIOGUAI'HV 

permitted  coiKlitioiis  to  be  such  as  to  render  these  men 
unfit  for  command.  'I'ake  a  stout  captain  of  an  out-of-tlic 
way  two-company  post,  where  nothing  in  the  world  ever 
occurred  even  resembhng  mihtary  action,  and  where  the 
only  military  problem  that  reall\-  con\  ulsed  the  post  to  its 
foundations  was  the  quarrel  between  the  captain  and  the 
quartermaster  as  to  how  high  a  mule's  tail  ought  to  be 
shaved  (I  am  speaking  of  an  actual  incident).  What  could 
be  expected  of  such  a  man,  even  though  thirty-tive  years 
before  he  had  been  a  gallant  second  lieutenant  in  the  C'i\il 
War,  if,  after  this  intervening  do-nothing  period,  he  was 
suddenK'  put  in  command  of  raw  troops  in  a  midsummer 
campaign  in  the  tropics  .' 

The  bureau  chiifs  were  for  the  most  part  elderly  incompe- 
tents, whose  idea  was  to  do  their  routine  duties  in  such 
way  as  to  escape  the  censure  of  routine  bureaucratic  superiors 
and  to  avoid  a  Congressional  investigation.  They  had  not 
the  slightest  conception  of  preparing  the  army  for  war.  It 
was  impossible  that  they  could  have  any  such  conception. 
The  people  and  the  Congress  did  not  wish  the  army  )repared 
for  war;  and  those  editors  and  philanthropists  and  peace 
advocates  who  felt  vaguely  that  if  the  army  were  incompe- 
tent their  principles  were  safe,  always  inveighed  against  any 
proposal  to  make  it  efficient,  f)n  the  ground  that  this  showed 
a  natural  bloodthirstiness  in  the  proposer.  When  such  were 
the  conditions,  it  was  absolutel)'  impossible  that  either 
the  War  Department  or  the  army  could  do  well  in  the  event 
of  war.  Secretary  Alger  happened  to  be  Secretary  when 
war  broke  out,  and  all  the  responsibility  for  the  shortcomings 
of  the  Department  were  visited  upon  his  devoted  head.  He 
was  made  the  scapegoat  for  our  National  shortcomings. 
'I'he  fault  was  not  his  ;  the  fault  and  responsibility  lay  with  us, 
the  people,  who  for  thirty-thre.  years  had  permitted  our 
representatives  in  Congress  and  in  National  executive  olfice 
to  bear  themselves  so  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible  to 
avoid  the  great  bulk  of  all  the  trouble  that  occurred,  and  of 
a!!  the  ••!i'-rtc'>ming<  "f  which  our  people  eomplained.  durint' 
the  Spanisli  War.  The  chief  immediate  cause  was  the 
condition  of  red-tape  bureaucracy  which  existed  in  the  War 


TIIK   \\.\R   ()!•    AMKkICA    THK   rNRi:.\l")Y       245 


ncpartinciit  ;il  \\;isliiiii;tnii.  wliicli  liatl  pn'\  i-iitcd  ;m\  k';"J 
«.i>r;iiii/,ali«.n  i.r  llif  pnp;n.ili<  m  "f  aii\  p'oil  plan  "I  operation 
•for  usiii^  our  iiicii  aiul  supplii-^.  I'lu-  r»'tiirn-iui-  of  tlicsi- 
coiulitioiis,  cvin  tlioUKli  ill  somcwhal  kss  air^ravatcd  form, 
in  any  future-  inuM>.'<nc\  is  as  certain  as  sunrise  unless  we 
brinjj' about  the  principle  of  a  four  years'  detail  in  the  staff 
corps  a  principle  which  Congress  lias  now  lor  years 
stubbornly   refused   to  grant.  r   1  •  1     1 

There  are  nations  wlio  only  need  to  ha\i-  peaceful  ideals 
inculcated,  and  lo  whom  nnlitarisin  is  a  curse  and  a  mis- 
fortune. There  are  other  nations,  like  otir  own,  so  happily 
situated  that  the  thought  of  war  is  never  present  to  their 
minds.  They  are  wholly  free  from  any  tendency  im- 
properly to  exalt  or  to  practice  militarism.  These  nations 
should  never  forget  that  there  must  be  military  ideals  no  less 
than  peaceful  ideals.  The  exaltation  of  Nt)gi's  career,  set 
forth  so  strikingly  in  Stanley  Washburn's  little  volume  on 
the  great  Japanese  warrior,  contains  much  that  is  especially 
needed  for  us  of  America,  prone  as  we  are  to  regard  the 
exigencies  of  a  purely  commercial  and  industrial  civilization 
as  excusing  us  from'  the  need  of  admiring  and  practicing 
the  heroic  and  warlike  virtues. 

Our  people  are  not   military.     We  need  normally  «)nly  a 
small  standing  army;    but   there  should  be  behind  it  a  re- 
serve of  instructed  "men  big  enough  to  fill  it   up  to  lull  war 
strength,  which  is  over  twice  the  peaci-  strength.      Moreover, 
the  young  men  of  the  country  should  realize  that   it   is  the 
duty  of  every  one  of  them  to  prepare  himself  so  that  in  time 
of  need  he  ma\  spei'dih  become  an  ethcieiit  soldier        a  dut\- 
now   generallv    foigotti-n,    but    which    should   be    recognized 
as  one  of  the'  vitally  essential  parts  of  ever\   man's  training. 
In   endeavoring   t'o  get    the   "  Roimh    Riders"  equipped    I 
met  with  some  experiences  which  were  both  odd  and  instruc- 
tive.    There   were   not   t'lmugh   arms  and  other  necessaries 
to  go  round,  and  there  was  keen  rivalry  among  the  intelligent 
and  zealous  c-Mnmaiulers  of  the  volunteer  organizations  as 
to  who  should  get  first  choice.     Wood's  experience  was  what 
enabled   us  to  equip  ourselves   in   short   order.     There  was 
another  cavalry  organization  whose  commander  was  at  the 


i 


24'-     lilKODOkl.    KOOSIA  KI.I        AN    Al'IOMKHm  \I>||V 

U.ir  Difnirtmciil  .ilxini  this  liim-,  aiul  uc  lijii  \H\n  rsiiii^' 
liini  with  imuh  .ili  rliios  as  a  rival.  ( )iu'  Jaj  I  asked  hint 
what  Ills  plans  wt-ri-  about  aniline  aiul  Jiilliiij;  his  troops, 
who  wcTf  of  pri'iisd)  the  typr  of  oiii  own  mm.  He-  aii- 
swcrt-il  that  he-  «.'xpfctfd  "to  L'ivi-  i-adi  of  thi-  boys  two 
ivvolvcTS  and  a  lariat,  and  then  just  tiiiii  thcin  loose"  I 
rcportfd  thr  convcrsati.  .n  to  Wood,  with  tlu-  rrniark  ijiat 


ColoMi    liiKiiHim    KiiiKiMi.r    \\i>   \  (iKdi  i>  ii»   KiiiGii  Ku.krs. 

uc  niijrht  feci  oiirstlves  safe  from  rivalry  in  that  quarter- 
and  safe  \w  were.  '  ' 

In  trying  to  g.  t  the  ecjuipmciit  I  met  with  checks  and 
rebuffs,  and  in  return  was  the  cause  of  worr\  and  concern 
to  various  bureau  chiefs  who  were  unquestionably  estimable 
men  in  their  private  and  domestic  relations,  ami  who  doubt- 
less had  bcin  gin.d  ofFlcers  thirty  years  before,  but  who  were 
as  unfit  for  modern  war  as  if  th'ev  were  so  many  smooth- 
bores.    One  tine  oKl  fellow  did  his  best  to  persuade  us  to 


TIIK   WAR   Ol     AMKRICA    THK   I  NRKADV        24? 


take  black  powder  rifli-s,  ixplainiiig  with  paternal  indulgence 
that  IK)  one  yet  really  knew  just  wltat  smokeless  pf)wder 
might  do,  and  that  tlurc  was  a  good  deal  to  he  said  in  favor 
of  having  smoke  tu  i'>iiceal  us  from  tin-  i  nemx .  i  saw 
this  pleasing  theory  attuall>  worked  out  in  practiec  latiM 
on,  for  the  National  duanl  regiments  with  us  at  Santiago 
had  black  powder  n  iiskits,  and  the  regular  artillery  black 
pf)wder  guns,  and  tiie\  really  might  almost  as  well  have 
replaced  these  weapons  by  crossbows  and  mangonels.  We 
succeeded,  thanks  to  Wdod,  in  getting  the  same  cavalry 
carbines  t'nat  were  used  b\  the  regulars.  W'l-  were  de- 
termined to  ilo  this,  not  only  because  the  weapons  were  good, 
but  because  i'  is  would  in  ail  probability  mean  thai  we  were 
brigaded  with  the  regular  cavalr\-,  which  it  was  certain 
would  be  sent  immediately  to  the  front  f..r  the  fighting. 

There  was  one  worthy  bureau  chief  who  was  continually 
refusing  applications  of  mini'  as  imgular.  In  each  case  I 
would  appeal  to  Secretary  .\lger  who  helped  me  in  every 
way  — and  get  an  order  from  him  countenancing  the  irreg- 
ularity. Fo-  instance,  1  lound  out  that  as  we  werr  nearer 
the  July  date  than  the  January  date  for  the  issuance  of 
clothing,  and  as  it  had  long  been  customary  to  issue  the 
winter  clothing  in  July,  so  as  to  give  ample  leisure  for  getting 
it  to  all  the  xarious'posts,  it  was  therefore  soK  mnl\-  pro- 
posed to  issue  this  same  winter  clothing  ti-  u^.  who  were  about 
to  start  for  a  summer  camp.iign  in  the  tropics.  This  would 
seem  incredible  to  those  who  ha\e  never  dealt  with  an  inert 
officialdom,  a  red-tape  bureaucracy,  but  such  is  the  fact.  I 
rectified  this  and  got  an  ordi'r  for  khaki  .lotliing.  We  were 
then  told  we  would  have  to  advertise  thirt\-  da\s  for  hordes. 
This  meant  that  wi-  would  have  missed  the  Santiago  exp  li- 
tion.  So  I  made  another  successful  appeal  to  the  Secretary 
Other  difficulties  came  up  about  wagons,  and  various  articles, 
and  in  each  case  the  same  result  followed.  Ou  the  last 
occasion,  when  I  came  up  in  triumph  with  the  nei  *d  order, 
the  worried  office  head,  who  bore  me  no  aniinosi!\.  but  who 
liid  feel  that  fati-  had  been  ver\  unkind,  iluix'  himself  back 
in  his  chair  and  exclaimed  with  a  siL'h  :  "<)li.  dear!  I  had 
this  office  running  in  such  good  shape       and  then  aloii-  came 


If 


24«     rilH'DORK    ROOSIAKI/I'      AN    AT  ^()HI()(;RAIMI^ 

the  war  aiiJ  upsrt  rvir>  tiling  I"  His  fiiliiin  was  that  war 
was  an  illigitiinatr  intinuplioii  to  thi-  wurk  of  tlu-  War 
Depart  imiil. 

There  were  of  coiir>e  departiueiit  heads  and  bureau  chiefs 
and  assistants  wiio,  in  spite  of  theuorthlessness  of  the  s\  stern, 
and  of  till-  paral)  zin^'  conditions  that  liad  prevailed,  retiiaiiied 
tirst-elass  men.  An  example  of  tliese  was  C'ommissar)- 
(ieneral  Weston.  His  iner>:\ ,  activity,  administralixe 
efHcienc) ,  and  common  sense  were  suppliinented  by  an 
eajrer  desire  to  iielp  everybody  do  tin-  best  that  could  be 
done.  Both  in  Washington  ami  a^'ain  down  at  Santiago 
wettwed  him  \iry  much.  When  I  was  I'resident,  it  was  in\ 
good  fortune  to  repa_\  him  in  part  our  debt,  which  mean's 
the  debt  of  the  people  ol  the  count r\-,  b)  makinv.'  him  a 
major-j;eneral. 

'rhe  regimen!  assemblid  at  .San  Antonio.  When  I  reacheil 
there,  the  men,  riHes,  and  hor^'s,  which  were  the  essentials, 
were  coming  in  fast,  and  thi'  saddU's,  blankets,  and  the  like 
were  also  accumulating.  Thanks  to  Wood's  exertions, 
when  We  reaclud  Tampa  we  were  ratlur  better  equipped  than 
most  of  the  regular  regiments.  We  adhered  stricti)-  to 
field  equipmi-nt,  allowing  ik.  luxuries  or  an>thing  else  un- 
necessarw  and  so  we  were  able  to  mo\e  otT  the  field  when 
ordered,  with  our  own  transportation,  lea\  ing  nothingbehind. 

I  supposi-  ever}  man  tenc.  to  brag  about  his  reginient  ; 
but  it  iloes  seem  to  me  that  there  ne\ir  was  a  regiment 
bi'tter  worth  bragging  about  than  ours.  Wood  was  an 
exceptional  commander,  of  great  j-iower,  with  a  remarkabk- 
gift  for  organization.  'I'he  rank  ami  lile  wiie  as  tim-  natural 
fighting  men  as  ever  carried  a  rifle  or  rode  a  horsi'  in  aii\ 
country  or  any  age.  We  had  a  number  of  Hrst-class  young 
fellows  from  the  l*'ast.  most  of  them  from  colleges  like  Har- 
vard, Vale,  and  Princeton;  but  the  great  maiority  of  the 
men  were  Southwesterners,  from  the  then  territories  of 
Oklahoma,  Indian  Territor\,  Arizona,  and  New  .Mexico. 
They  weri'  accustomed  to  the  use  of  firearms,  accustomed 
lo  taking  can  r.f  iinn)>el\e>  in  ihc  oprn  ;  lhe\  weii'  intelli- 
gent and  self-reliant  ;  they  possessed  hardihood  and  en- 
durance and   physical   prowess;    and,  above  all,   they  had 


rilK   WAR   or   AMKRK  \    IIIK    INRKADV        24<> 


(II  t  rui"    ; 

ill-!'   J    '      1. 
"I    >>■■  \\ 
'i 


i-y] 


nipa.  I'lnharkid, 

ious  ((tTi'iisi\ t- 

till'  otficcrs  and 

all  within  sixty 

;  for  tlir  imti  of 


tlu-  tiKlitiiiK'  i->-lv'i%  '111-  cool  aiKl  riM.luti-  finlitinn  ittiipiT. 
'I'Ih-v  wriit  into  tin-  war  with  full  kiiowiixl^'i-.  ha\iii^  dililH-r- 
ali'ly  coiintfci  the  cost.  In  thr  yit-at  majority  ol  cases  each 
mail  was  chiefly  anxious  to  timl  out  what  he  should  do  to 
make  the  rejrinient  a  succes>.  They  Iviu^'ht,  tir>t  and  last, 
about  Soo  copies  of  the  cavalr>  drill  re^'iilations  and  studied 
them  inilustriousi) .  Such  iiuii  wcii'  practicall)  soldiers  to 
start  with,  in  all' the  e>sen''  U.  It  i^  small  wonder  that 
with  them  as  material  to  -■  ,'     n  the  regiment  was  raised, 

armed,  equipped,  drilled     > 
diseml>arkc-d,   .md   put    ■  ,r. 
not  defensive        fi>;lit 
one-tlfth  of  the  men  v^  .  '<    l.i 
days.      It  is  a  k""'*''    '  ■ 
the  reirimeiit  ;   and         pi  ■i'- 

Wood  was  so  bu  ,  ■;  'I  I 
reached  San  Antoiiic  in 
over  to  me.  This  was  i  pp 
and  I  drilled  the  men  indi  •' 
I  had  plent\-  to  learn,  a.u 
more;  but  we  went  at  our  work  with  the  heartiest  uood  will. 
We  speedily  made  it  evident  that  there  was  no  room  and  no 
mercy  for  am  man  who  shirked  an.\  dut\  .  and  we  accom- 
plished good  results.  The  fad  i->  that  the  essentials  of  drill 
and  work  for  a  cavalr\  or  an  infantr)  leLMinent  are  easy  to 
learn,  which  of  course  is  not  true  for  the  artillery  or  the  en- 
gineers or  for  till-  na\  y.  The  reason  why  it  lakes  so  long  to 
turn  the  average  civili/.ed  man  into  a  u'ood  infantryman  or 

"T..  omiiUTlMl.nuv  iIk-  movs'.MH'is  uliidi  ien-t.,i.tl>  ..lul  •nuli>.nM.i.Ka.  Iv 
nraiseJ  all  the  vluiitivrs  tluTi-  wrr  ntluTs  «h.w;-  bl...MC  «.is  of  ll,y  -aiiu-  nilclhi.vnt 
.uialilv.     Tiu-  New  V..rk  /■::v„,«i;  /'-../.  nn  June  |S.  uMve  cxprcssi.Mi  U>  t  ,r  t.-Muu- 


•U.'U 

ie'.:ri.'  it  read)  that  when  I 
I  ,!(.•,  (.'  the  drilling  of  it 
I  j'i.  1;  iiood  fortune  for  me, 
i>  , ,  ,    li    tedanduninounted. 

•nci.       id   the  officers  even 


narU-J  tluil  iintliim.'  more 


iiii:  L'looiin-  fi>ri'l-"Kliin;:  ■•C'^Mipitfin  nbsiTVcr-*  liavo  rfin 
(•Xlra..rjinar\  has  been  J-nr  tlian  the  senahiL-  tu  Cuba  of  the  iMrst  I  nite.i  States 
Volunteer  Cavalrv.  known  a.  the  Touv.-h  tiaei,.'  OrL'ani/ea  bu.  '-ur  v«eeks,  barely 
eiven  their  full  e..n,plen.ent  of  oMu.m-,  an,l  ..nlv  a  week  ol  reji:  drill.  tlie>e  nien 
haw  been  >ent  to  ,he  front  lH-f..re  ih.  ',  hue  learned  tlie  ll.M  ele  i.t.  of  ^oK  lerinK 
ana  aiseipline,  o,-  h,xe  even  b  .  ■  .,n.' .KMuaintea  ulth  th-ir  othv  T..  In  a.Minon 
to  .,11  this  like  th.-  ■.■.■ular  .  ,^^h^.  ihev  h,v.-  been  ^enl  uith  onlv  their  >  arhines 
and  le^..iw■I^  lo  meel  an  .-iieMr.  ,,iine,i  vMtli  |oni.'-rani:e  nil.  v.  tiieo  iiaw  Ik.u 
fe\\  eases  of  Mil  h  iuilil.iiv  i  i  uelt  >  in  our  military  annals 
not  wholly  hai'|n  prophee)  was  proni;;li;  I'ed.  the  "eruelM 
tirsl  al  I. as  Uuasiiiias  and  then  in  the  Salt  Juan  liulilini:. 


\  weik  or  -o  after  thi> 
uas  eonsuininated. 


250     rHi:C)lX)RK    ROOSKV  KLT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


cavalryman  is  because  it  takes  a  long  while  to  teach  the 
average  untrained  man  how  to  shoot,  to  ride,  to  march,  to 
take  care  of  himself  in  the  open,  to  be  alert,  resourceful, 
cool,  daring,  and  resolute,  to  obey  quickly,  as  well  as  to  be 
willing,  and  to  fit  himself,  to  act  on  his  own  responsibility. 
If  he  already  possesses  these  qualities,  there  is  very  little 
difficulty  in  making  him  a  soldier;  all  the  drill  that  is  neces- 
sary to  enable  him  to  march  and  to  fight  is  of  a  simple  charac- 
ter.    Parade  ground  and  barrack  square  maneuvers  are  of 
no  earthly  consequence  in  real  war.     When  men  can  readily 
change  from  line  to  column,  and  column  to  line,  can  i'orm 
front  in  any  direction,  and  assemble  and  scatter,  and  can  do 
these  things  with  speed  and  precision,  they  have  a  fairly  good 
grasp  of  the  essentials.    When  our  regiment  reached  Tampa  it 
could  already  be  handled  creditably  at  fast  gaits,  and  both 
in  mass  and  extended  formations,  mounted  and  dismounted. 
I  had  served  three  years  in  the  Xevv  \'ork  .\ational  (luard, 
finally  becoming  a  captain.     This  experience  was  invaluable 
to  nie.      It  enabled  me  at  once  to  train  the  men  in  the  simple 
drill  without  which  they  would  have  been  a  mob;    for  al- 
though   the   drill    requirements   are    simple,    they   are   also 
absolutely   indispensable.      But  if  I   had  believed  that  my 
experience  in  the  National  (Juard  had  taught  me  all  that 
there  was  to  teach  about  a  soldier's  career,  it  would  have  been 
better  for  me  not  to  have  been  in  it  at  all.     There  were  in 
the  regiment  a  number  (jf  men  who  had  served  in  the  National 
Cluard,  and  a  number  of  others  who  had  served  in  the  Regular 
Army.     Some  of  these  latter  had  served  in  the  field  in  the 
West  under  campaign  conditions,  and  were  accustomed  to 
long  marches,  prixation,  risk,  and  unexpected  emergencies. 
These    men   were    of   the   utmf)st   benefit   to   the    regiment. 
They  already   knew  their  profession,   and  could   teach   and 
help  the  others.      But   if  the   man   had   merely  served  in   a 
National  (uiard  regiment,  or  in  the  Regular  Army  a'  some 
post  in  a  civilized  country  where  he  learned  nothing  except 
what  could  be  picked  up  on  the  parade  ground,  in  the  bar- 
racks, and  in  practice  marches  of  a    few  miles   along  good 
roads,   tluii   it    tlepended   purely   upon    his  own   good   sense 
whether    he    had    been    helped   or   hurl    by    the   experience. 


TMK   WAR   OK   AMKRK'A    THK   INRIvVDV       251 

If  he  rcalizi'd  lliat  lu-  li.ul  k-anu-d  onl)  f\\v  prr  (.t'lit  of  his  pro 
fcssion,  thai  there  remained  ninety-five  per  cent  to  accom- 
plish before  he  would  be  a  good  soldier,  why,  he  had  prof- 
ited immensely. 

To  start  with  five  per  cent  handicap  was  a  very  great 
advantage;  and  if  the  man  was  really  a  good  man,  he  could 
not  be  overtaken.  But  if  the  man  thought  that  he  had 
learned  all  about  the  profession  of  a  soldier  because  he  had 
been  in  the  National  Guard  or  in  the  Regular  Army  under 
the  conditions  I  have  described,  then  he  was  actually  of  less 
use  than  if  he  had  never  had  any  military  experience  at 
all.  Such  a  man  was  apt  to  think  that  nicety  of  alignment, 
precision  in  wheeling,  and  correctness  in  the  manual  of  arms 
were  the  ends  of  training  and  the  guarantees  of  good  soldier- 
ship, and  that  from  guard  mounting  to  sentry  dut)-  every- 
thing in  war  was  to  be  done  in  accordance  with  what  he 
had  learned  in  peace.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  most  of  what  he 
had  learned  was  never  used  at  all,  and  some  of  it  had  to 
be  unlearned.  The  one  thing,  for  instance,  that  a  sentry 
ought  never  to  do  in  an  actual  campaign  is  to  walk  up  and 
down  a  line  where  he  will  be  conspicuous.  I  lis  business  is  to 
lie  down  somewhere  off  a  ridge  crest  where  he  can  see  any 
one  approaching,  but  where  a  man  approaching  cannot 
see  him.  As  for  the  ceremonies,  during  the  really  hard  jiart 
of  a  campaign  only  the  barest  essentials  are  kept. 

Alinost  all  of  the  junior  regular  officers,  and  many  of  tl;e 
senior  regular  officers,  were  fine  men.  But,  through  no  fault 
of  their  own,  had  been  forced  to  lead  lives  that  fairly  para- 
lyzed their  efficiency  when  the  strain  of  modern  war  came 
on  them.  The  routine  elderly  regular  officer  who  knew 
nothing  whatever  of  modern  war  was  in  most  respects  nearly 
as  wortiiless  as  a  raw  recruit.  The  positions  and  commands 
prescribed  in  the  text-books  were  made  into  fetishes  by  some 
of  these  men,  and  treated  as  if  they  were  the  ends,  instead 
the  not  always  important  means  b\-  which  the  ends  were 
10  be  achieved.  In  the  Cuban  fighting,  for  instance,  it 
ivould  have  been  folly  for  me  to  have  taken  my  place  in 
the  rear  of  the  regiment,  the  canonical  te.xt-book  position. 
My  business  was  to  be  where  I  could  keep  most  command 


252    riiKoDoRK  R()()SK\i;i;r     AN  Arioi'.i()(;K.\i>iiv 


:  I 


over  tlie  icginu-nt,  ami,  in  a  n)uj;h-aiul-tuml>li-,  scramhliiij,' 
lijilil  ill  tliick  jmij,'lc,  this  had  t<.  dfpi'iid  upon  ihi-  course 
(if  rviiits,  ami  usual  I  \  nuaiit  tliat  I  liad  lo  he  at  ihr  front.  I 
saw  in  that  tijjhting  nion-  titan  onr  (.idcTl}  iTgiim-ntal  com- 
mander who  unwittingly  rendered  the  onI\  ser\  ice  he  could 
render  to  his  regiment  by  taking  up  his  proper  position 
several  hundred  yards  in  the  rear  when  the  fighting  began; 
for  then  the  regiment  disappeared  in  the  jungle,  and  for 
its  good  fortune  the  commanding  officer  never  saw  it  again 
until  long  after  the  fight  was  o\er. 

Alter  one  Cuban  tight  a  lieutenant-coh.iiel  of  tlu'  regulars 
in  command  of  a  regiment,  who  had  met  with  just  such  at 
experience  and  had  rejoined  us  at  the  front  several  hours 
after  the  close  of  the  fighting,  asked  me  what  my  men  were 
doing  when  the  tight  began.  I  answered  that  the)  were 
following  in  trace  in  column  of  twos,  and  that  the  instant 
the  shooting  began  1  deployed  them  as  skirmishers  on  both 
sides  of  the  trail.  He  answered  triumphanti)-,  '"Wiu  can't 
de})lo\-  men  as  skirmishers  from  column  formation";  to 
\vhich_  I  responded,  "Well,  I  did.  and,  what  is  more,  if  any 
captain  hat!  made  an_\  difhcults  about  it,  I  would  have 
sent  him  to  the  rear."  .My  critic  was  quite  correct  from  the 
parade  ground  standpoint,  'i'he  prescribed  orders  at  that 
time  were  to  deploy  iht-  column  first  into  a  line  of  squads 
at  correct  inter\al.s,  and  then  to  gi\c  an  order  which,  if 
my  memorv  ser\i's  correctlx,  ran:  "As  skirmishers,  b-.-  the 
right  and  left  Hanks,  ai  six  yards,  take  intervals,  march." 
The  ordt'r  I  reall\  ga\i-  ran  more  like  this:  "Scatter  out  to 
the  right  there,  quick,  \i)U  '  scatter  to  t  lie  left  I  look  alive, 
look  ali\(I"  And  they  looked  ali\e,  and  the\-  scattered, 
and  each  took  ad\antage  of  co\  er,  and  forward  wiTit  the  line. 

.Now  I  i.io  not  wish  what  I  ha\-e  said  to  be  misunderstood. 
If  ever  we  have  a  gri'at  war,  the  bulk  of  our  soldiers  will  not  be 
men  who  have  had  any  opportunil\  to  train  soul  and  mind 
and  bod_\  so  as  to  meet  the  iron  needs  of  an  actual  campaign. 
Long  continued  and  faithful  drill  will  alone  put  these  men  in 
shape  to  begin  to  do  their  dut\ ,  and  failure  to  recognize  this 
on  the  part  of  the  a\eragi'  man  will  mean  laziness  and  foll> 
and    not    the    possession    of   etliciency.      .Moreover,    if    men 


THK   WAR   OK   AMKRICA    I  UK    INRKADV        253 


have-  bfc-n  trained  to  lu-lk-vc.  tor  iiislaiicc,  lli;)t  they  can 
"arbitrate  questions  of  vital  interest  and  national  honor,  if 
ihev  ha\e  been  brought  up  with  tiabbiness  of  moral  fiber 
as  well  as  flabbiness  of  physique,  then  there  will  be  need  o 
long  and  laborious  and  faithful  work  to  give  the  needed 
tone  to  mind  and  body.  But  if  the  men  have  in  them  tiie 
right  stuff,  it  is  not  so  vi'ry  dittieult. 

\t  San  Antonio  we  entrained  for  'I'ampa.  In  various 
soeioh.gieal  books  by  authors  of  Continental  Kurope, 
there  are  jeremiads  as  to  tlu'  way  in  which  service  111  the 
great  Kuropeaii  armies,  with  their  minute  and  machme-like 
ethcieiicy  and  regularity,  tends  to  dwarf  the  capacitv  for 
initiati\c   among  the    officers   and 

or  man    of    a    volunteer 


indi\ulual    inniainc   anuMi)^   im    ...mw,..   ......   men.      I  here 

is   no  such   danger  f<«r  any   officer  or  man  ,      r   , 

America    when   our   country,    with    playful 


organization   in 


light-heart edness.  has  pranced  int(.  war  witliout  making  any 
preparation  f..r  it.      I   know  no  larger  or  finer  field  for  tlie 


prep 
displa) 


....,.,..,     ..f    an    advanced    individualism    than    that    which 
opened  before  us  as  we  went   from  San  Antonio  to  1  ampa, 
camped    there,    and   embarked    ou    a    transport    lor   C  uba. 
NolK)dv    ever    had    anv    definite    iniormation    to    give    us, 
and  whatever  information  we  unearthed  on  our  own  account 
was  usuallv  wrong.      Kach  of  us  had  to  show  an  alert  and 
not  overscrupulous  self-reliance  in  order  to  obtain  lof.d  for 
his  men,  provender  for  his  horses,  or  transportation  ol  any 
kind  for  anv  object.     One  lesson  earl\   impressed  on  me  was 
that   if   I   wanted   anvthing  to  eat    it   was    wise   to  carry  it 
with  me;   and  if  an\   new  war  should  arise,  I  would  earnestly 
advise  the  men  of  ever\    solunteer  organization  always  to 
proceed  upon  the  belief  that  their  supplies  will  not  turn  up, 
and  to  take  everv  opp.Mtunitv  of  getting  food  lor  themselves. 
Tampa  was  a 'scene  of  the  wildest  confusion.      I  here  were 
miles  of  tracks  loaded  witli  cars  of  the  contents  ot   whiclt 
nnbodv   seemed    to  have   anv   definite   knowledge.     ( .eneral 
Miles,  who  was  supposed  t..  have  MipcrvisiMn.-ver  everything, 
and  (ieneral  Shafter,  who  had  charge  of  the  rxpedit.on,  were 
both  there.      But.  thanks  to  the  lact   that   nobo.h   liac 
any  experience  in  handling  e\i'n  such  a  snia 
about     17,000    men 


tiiert'    was    no 


force  as 
semblance    ot 


had 
(lurs     - 
( nder. 


254     TIIKODORK    R(K)SK\  KLT       a.\    .\rT()BHK;RAl'JI\ 

U'ooJ  and  I  were  bi.uiKl  tiial  wc  should  not  be  left  l)c-hind 
wlu-n  the-  expedition  started.  When  we  were  finally  in- 
formed that  It  was  to  lea\e  next  morning',  we  were  ordered 
to  ^'..  to  a  certain  track  to  meet  a  train.  We  went  to  the 
track,  hut  the  train  never  came.  Then  we  were  sent  to 
another  track  to  meet  another  train.  Again  it  never  came. 
H..uever,  we  tound  a  coal  train,  of  which  we  took  possession 


nallv  Wood  w;as  told  to  -get  any  ship  you  can  get  which  is 
not  already  assigned.        He  borrowed  without  leave  a  small 

Wh'n      T\   V       .^■•""'"^"'^^■^•'■^■J    the    transport    Yucatan. 

When    asked    by    the   captain    what    his    authoritv    was,    he 

reported  that  he  was  acting  "by  orders  of  Ceneral  Shafter," 
and  directed  the  ship  to  be  brought  t,.  the  dock.  He  had 
already  sent  me  word  to  be  ready,  as  soon  as  the  ship  touched 

he  pier,  to  put  the  regiment  aboard  her.      F  found  that  she 
had   already    been   assigned    to   a    regular   regiment,   and    to 
am.ther  volunteer  regiment,  and  as  it  was  evident  that  not 
more  than  half  of  themen  assigned  tolurcould  possiblvget  on 
I  was  determined  that  we  should  not  be  among  the  men  left 
off.     The  volunteer  regiment  offered   a  comparativelv  easy 
probem.      I    simp  y    marched    my    men    pas!    them    'to    the 
.lotted   place   and    held    the   gangway       With    the    regulars 
I    liad   to  be  a   little   more  diplomatic,   becau.se  their  com- 
mander,   a    lieutenant-colonel,    was    „iv    superior    in    rank 
and  also  doubtless  knew  his  rights.      He  sent  word  to  me  to 
make  way,  to  draw  my  regiment  off  to  one  side,  and  let  his 
take  possession  of  the  gangway.      I  could  see  the  transport 
coming  ,n    and  could  dimly  make  out  Wood's  figure  ther  v,,,. 
Accordingly     I    played   for  time.      I   sent   respectful    rec,uc.sts 

l>rough   h,s  ohcers   ,o  the  commander  of  the  regulars,  en- 
lered  into  parleys,  and  made  protestations,  unti''    ' 


port   got   near  enough   so  that    by  yelling  at    the  top  of  m 
voice   1    was  able  to  g.t  u.to  a         highlv   instructive        con 


the  Trans- 
ly 
1- 


'IIIK   WAR   OF   AMKRICA    lUK   INRKADY       255 


immicatk.n  with  Wood.  What  Ik-  was  sa\ii)g  I  liad  110 
idea,  but  he  was  evidently  speaking,  ami  on  n)y  own  re- 
sponsibility I  translated  it  into  direetions  to  hold'the  gang- 
way, and  so  informed  the  regulars  that  1  was  under  the  orders 
of  my  superior  and  of  a  ranking  officer,  and  -  to  my  great 
regret,  etc.,  etc.  —  could  not  give  way  as  they  desired. 
As  soon  as  the  transport  was  fast  we  put  our  men  aboard  at 
the  double.  Half  of  the  regular  regiment  got  on,  and  the  other 
half  and  the  other  volunteer  regiment  went  somewhere  else. 

We  were  kept  several  da\s  on  the  transport,  which  was 
jammed  with  men,  so  that  it  was  hard  to  move  about  on 
the  deck.  Then  the  fleet  got  under  way,  and  we  steamed 
slowly  down  to  Santiago.  Here  we  disembarked,  higgledv- 
piggledy,  just  as  we  had  embarked.  DiflFerent  parts  of 
different  outfits  were  jumbled  together,  and  it  was  no  light 
labor  afterwards  to  assemble  the  various  batteries.  For 
instance,  one  transport  had  guns,  and  another  the  locks  for 
the  guns  ;  the  two  not  getting  together  for  several  days  after 
one  of  them  had  been  landed.  Soldiers  went  here,  pro- 
visions there  ;  and  who  got  ashore  first  Iargel_\-  depended  upon 
individual  activity.  Fortunately  for  us,  my  former  naval 
aide,  when  I  had  been  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Xavv, 
Lieutenant-Commander  Sharp,  a  first-class  fellow,  was  there 
in  cominand  of  a  little  ship  to  which  I  had  succeeded  in 
getting  him  appointed  before  1  left  the  .Navy  Department. 
He  gave  us  a  black  pilot,  who  took  our  transport  right  in 
shore,  the  others  following  like  a  flock  of  sheep;  and  we 
disembarked  with  our  riHes,  ammunition  belts,  and  not 
much  else.  In  theory  it  was  out  of  our  turn,  but  if  we  had 
not  disembarked  then,  Hea\en  only  knows  when  our  turn 
would  have  come,  and  we  did  not  intend  to  be  out  of  the 
fighting  if  we  could  help  it.  I  carried  some  food  in  niv 
pockets,  and  a  light  waterproof  coat,  which  was  iii\-  sole 
camp  equipment  for  the  next  two  or  three  days.  Twenty- 
four  hour-;  after  getting  ashore  we  inarched  from  Daiquiri, 
where  we  had  landed,  to  Sibonev ,  also  on  the  coast,  reaching 
it  during  a  terrific  downpour  of  rain.  When  this  was  over. 
We  built  a  fire,  dried  our  clothes,  and  ate  whatever  we  had 
brought    with    us. 


■  I 


2,-r.    I'liKoDoRi:  uoosiA  II  r     an  aiiohiockaimiv 


\\  c  wx-ii-  brijracU'd  with  tlic  First  and  Tc'iith  Rt'gular 
Cavalry,  uikIit  Bii^'aiiici-Cit-iural  Sam  Voimj:.  Hi"  was  a 
tliir  lypt'  of  ilic  Armiican  iij;ulai.  l-itic  (IciuTal  C'liafftf, 
audtluT  (if  tin-  samr  t\p(.-.  he  had  iiiti-irtl  the  army  iti  liu- 
C'i\ii  War  as  a  private.  Later,  whi-ii  I  was  i'resident,  it 
was  m\  good  fortiiiu-  to  make  each  of  them  in  stieeessioii 
l,ieiitviiaiit-(ieiieral  of  the  army  of  the  I  iiited  States.  \\  heii 
(leneral  \itung  retired  and  (leiieral  Chaflfee  was  to  take  his 
place,  tile  former  sent  to  tlie  latter  his  three  stars  to  wear  on 
liis  first  otHcial  presentation,  wit!i  a  note  that  they  were  from 
"I'rivati-  Voung  to  Private  Chaffee."  'I'he  two  fine  old 
fellows  hail  served  in  the  ranks,  one  in  the  ca\alry,  one  in 
the  infantry,  in  their  golden  youth,  in  the  tla\s  of  the  great 
war  nearl}'  half  a  centiir_\'  before;  each  had  grown  gray  in  a 
lifetime  of  honorable  service  under  the  flag,  and  each  closed 
his  active  career  in  command  of  the  arm\ .  (leiieral  Voung 
was  one  of  the  few  men  who  had  gixen  and  taken  wounds  with 
the  saber.  \lv  was  an  old  friend  of  mine,  and  when  in 
Washington  before  stalling  for  the  front  hi'  told  me  that  if 
we  got  in  his  brigaile  he  would  put  us  into  the  fighting  all 
"'u'ht.      He  kept  his  word. 

(leneral  Noting  had  activel\'  supcrintiiided  getting  his 
wo  regular  regiments,  or  at  U'ast  a  scpiadron  of  each,  off 
iie  transports,  and  late  that  night  hr  siiil  us  word  that  he 
!.id   reci'ivcd   permission    to  move  at    tlavvn   and   strike   the 

vanish   ad\ance  position.      He  directed   us  to  move  along 

ridg  trail  with  our  two  squadrons  (one  squadron  having 
cell  '  at  Tampa),  while  with  the  two  squadrons  of  regulars, 
I  fie  < 


lie 


First 


aiKl  one 


of  the    Tenth,  under  his  personal 


>,ipei  vi>ion,  he  marched  up  the  valley  trail.  Accordingly 
Wood  look  us  along  the  hill  trail  earl\-  next  morning,  till 
we  >truck  the  S]\iriiards.  and  began  our  hglit  just  as  the 
regulais  began  tlu-  tiglu  in  tlu'  valley  trail. 

It  was  a  mountainous  counliy  co\ered  with  thick  jungU', 
a  most  confusing  countr}.  and  I  had  an  awful  time  trying 
to  get  into  tlu'  tight  ant.1  trving  to  elo  what  was  right  when  in 
it  ;  and  all  the  while  I  was  thinking  that  I  was  tin- only  man 
who  did  not  know  what  I  was  about,  aiul  that  all  the  others 
did        whereas,  as  1  hiund  out  later,  pretty  much  everybod)' 


THE  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       ^57 


else  was  as  much  in  the  dark  as  I  was.  There  was  no  sur- 
prise; we  struck  the  Spaniards  exactly  where  we  had 
expected;  then  Wood  halted  us  and  put  us  into  the  fight 
deliberately  and  in  order.  He  ordered  us  to  deploy  alter- 
nately by  troops  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  trail,  giving  our 
senior  major,  Brodie,  a  VVest  Pointer  and  as  good  a  soldier 
as  ever  wore  a  uniform,  the  left  wing,  while  I  took  the  right 
wing.  I  was  told  if  possible  to  connect  with  the  regulars  who 
were  on  the  right.  In  theory  this  was  excellent,  but  as 
the  jungle  was  very  dense  the  first  troop  that  deployed  to 
the  right  vanished  forthwith,  and  I  never  saw  it  again  until 
the  fight  was  over  —  having  a  frightful  feeling  meanwhile 
that  I  might  be  court-martialed  for  losing  it.  The  next 
troop  deployed  to  the  left  under  Brodie.  Then  the  third 
came  along,  and  I  started  to  deploy  it  to  the  right  as  before. 

By  the  time  the  first  platoon  had  gotten  into  the  jungle 
I  realized  that  it  likewise  would  disappear  unless  I  kept 
hold  of  it.  I  managed  to  keep  possession  of  the  last  platoon. 
One  learns  fast  in  a  fight,  and  I  marched  this  platoon  and  my 
next  two  troops  in  column  through  the  jungle  without  any 
attempt  to  deploy  until  we  got  on  the  firing  line.  This 
sounds  simple.  But  it  was  not.  I  did  not  know  when 
I  had  gotten  on  the  firing  line  !  I  could  hear  a  good  deal 
of  firing,  some  over  to  my  right  at  a  good  distance,  and  the 
rest  to  the  left  and  ahead.  I  pushed  on,  expecting  to  strike 
the  enemy  somewhere  between. 

Soon  we  came  to  the  brink  of  a  deep  valley.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  cracking  of  rifles  way  off  in  front  of  us,  but  as 
they  used  smokeless  powder  we  had  no  idea  as  to  exactly 
where  they  were,  or  who  they  were  shooting  at.  Then  it 
dawned  on  us  that  we  were  the  target.  The  bullets  began 
to  come  overhead,  making  a  sound  like  the  ripping  of  a  silk 
dress,  with  sometimes  a  kind  of  pop ;  a  few  of  my  men  fell, 
and  I  deployed  the  rest,  making  them  lie  down  and  get 
behind  trees.  Richard  Harding  Davis  was  with  us,  and  as 
we  scanned  the  landscape  with  our  glasses  it  was  he  who 
first  pointed  out  to  us  some  Spaniards  in  a  trench  some 
three-quarters  of  a  mile  off.  It  was  difficult  to  make  them 
out.     There  were  not  many  of  them.     However,  we  finally 


2,8    THKODORK    ROOSKA  Kl.T      AN    AITOBIOCRAPHY 

did  make  them  out,  and  wc  could  see  their  conical  hats,  for 
the  trench  was  a  poor  one.  We  advanced,  firing  at  them, 
and  drove  them  off. 

What  to  do  then  1  had  not  an  idea.  The  country  in 
front  fell  away  into  a  very  difficult  jungle-filled  valley. 
There  was  nothing  but  jungle  all  around,  and  if  I  advanced 
I  was  afraid  1  might  get  out  of  touch  with  everybody  and 
not  be  going  in  the  right  direction.  Moreover,  as  far  as 
I  could  see,  there  was  now  nobody  in  front  who  was  shooting 
at  us,  although  some  of  the  men  on  my  left  insisted  that 
our  own  men  had  fired  into  us  —  an  allegation  which  I  soon 
found  was  almost  always  made  in  such  a  fight,  and  which 
in  this  case  was  not  true.  At  this  moment  some  ()f  the 
regulars  appeared  across  the  ravine  on  our  right.  The  first 
thing  they  did  was  to  fire  a  volley  at  us,  but  one  of  our  first 
sergeants  went  up  a  tree  and  waved  a  guidon  at  them  aiid 
they  sKjpped.  Firing  was  still  going  on  to  our  left,  however, 
and  I  was  never  more  puzzled  to  know  what  to  do.  I  did 
not  wi^h  to  take  my  men  out  of  their  position  without 
orders,  for  fear  that  I  might  thereby  be  leaving  a  gap  if  there 
was  a  Spanish  force  which  meditated  an  offensive  return. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that  I  had  been 
doing  enough  fighting  to  justify  my  existence,  and  there  was 
obviouslv  fighting  going  on  to  the  left.  I  remember  that 
I  kept  thinking  of  the  refrain  of  the  fox-hunting  song,  "Here's 
to  everv  friend  who  struggled  to  the  end";  in  the  hunting 
field  1  had  always  acted  on  this  theory,  and,  no  matter  how 
discouraging  appearances  might  be,  had  never  stopped 
trying  to  get  in  at  the  death  until  the  hunt  was  actually 
over;  and  now  that  there  was  work,  and  not  play,  on  hand, 
1  intended  to  struggle  as  hard  as  1  knew  how  not  to  be  left 
out  of  any  fighting  into  which  I  could,  with  any  possible 
proprietv,  get. 

So  I  left  my  men  where  they  were  and  started  oft  at  a 
trot  toward  where  the  firing  was,  with  a  couple  of  orderlies 
to  send  back  for  the  men  in  case  that  proved  advisable. 
I.ike  most  tyros,  I  was  wearing  my  sword,  which  in  thick 
jungle  now  and  then  got  between  my  legs  —  from  that  day 
on   it   always   went    corded   in    the  baggage.     I    struck   the 


THK   WAR   OF  AMERICA   THK   UNREADY       259 


trail,  and  began  to  pass  occasional  d;-acl  men.  Pretty 
soon  I  rt-ached  Wood  and  found,  much  to  my  pleasure,  that 
I  had  done  the  right  thing,  for  as  I  came  up  word  was 
brought  to  him  that  Brodie  had  been  ?hot,  ana  he  at  once 
sent  mc*to  take  charge  of  the  left  wing.  It  was  more  open 
country  here,  and  at  least  I  wris  able  to  get  a  glimpse  v)f  my 
own  men  and  exercise  some  c(.iitrol  o\er  then).  There 
was  much  firing  going  on,  but  for  the  life  of  me  I  could  not 
see  any  Spaniards,  ^d  neither  could  any  one  else.  Finally 
we  made  up  our  minds  that  they  were  shooting  ai  us  from  a 
set  of  red-tiled  ranch  buildings  a  good  way  in  front,  and 
these  I  assaulted,  finally  charging  them.  Before  we  came 
anywhere  near,  the  Spaniards,  who,  as  it  proved,  really 
were  inside  and  around  them,  abandoned  them,  leaving  a 
few  dead  men. 

By  the  time  I  had  taken  possession  of  these  buildings  all 
firing  had  ceased  everywhere.  I  had  not  the  faintest  idea  what 
had  happened  :  whether  the  fight  was  over;  or  whether  this 
was  merely  a  lull  in  the  fight;  or  where  the  Spaniards  were; 
or  whether  we  might  be  attacked  again  ;  or  whether  we  ought 
ourselves  to  attack  somebody  somewhere  else.  I  got  my 
men  in  order  and  sent  out  small  parties  to  explore  the 
ground  in  front,  who  returned  without  finding  any  foe. 
(By  this  time,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Spaniards  were  in 
full  retreat.)  Meanwhile  I  was  extending  my  line  so  as  to 
get  into  touch  with  our  people  on  the  right.  WOrd  was 
brought  to  me  that  Wood  had  been  shot  -  which  fortunately 
proved  not  to  be  true — and  as,  if  this  were  so,  it  meant 
that  I  must  take  charge  of  the  regiment.  I  moved  over 
personally  to  inquire.  Soon  I  learned  that  he  was  all 
right,  that  the  Spaniards  had  retreated  along  the  main  road, 
and  that  Colonel  Wood  and  two  or  three  other  officers 
were  a  short  distance  away.  Before  I  reached  them  I 
encountered  a  captain  of  the  Ninth  Cavalry,  very  glum 
because  his  troopers  had  not  been  up  in  time  to  take  part  in 
the  fight,  and  he  congratulated  me  with  visible  effort  I 
upon  my  share  in  our  first  victory.  I  thanked  him  cor- 
dially, not  confiding  in  him  that  till  that  moment  I  myself 
knew  exceeding  little  about  the  victory ;    and  proceeded  to 


26o    THt:ODORK    ROOSEVELT -AN    ALTOBIOC.RAPHY 

where  Generals  Wheeler,  Lawton,  and  ChaflFec,  who  had 
just  come  up,  in  company  with  Wood,  were  s^-atcd  on  a  bank. 
They  expressed  appreciation  of  the  way  thu  ^  I  had  handled 
my  troops,  first  on  the  right  wing  and  thi  n  on  the  left! 


Cupyrldht,  by  Underwoud  A  L'aaerwoud. 

Gen-eral  Joseph  Wheeler,  in  the  Forecrovd.  Comhanoer  or  the  Left  Winc,  of 
THE  Army  before  San  Juan  Hill.  From  Left  to  Right:  Major  (itoKOE  M. 
Dunn,  Colonel  Brodie.  Chaplain  Brown.  Leonard  Wood,  and  Colonel 
Theodore  Roosevelt. 

As  I  was  quite  prepared  to  find  I  had  committed  some  awful 
sin,  I  did  my  best  to  accept  this  in  a  nonchalant  manner, 
and  not  to  look  as  relieved  as  I  felt.  As  throughout  the 
morning  I  had  preserved  a  specious  aspect  of  wisdom, 
and  had  commanded  first  one  and  then  the  other  wing,  the 


THE  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       261 


fight  was  really  a  capital  thing  for  nic,  for  practical'y  all 
the  men  had  served  under  my  actual  command,  and  thence- 
forth felt  an  enthusiastic  belief  that  I  would  lead  them 
aright. 

It  was  a  week  after  this  skirmish  before  the  army  made 
the  advance  on  Santiago,  Just  before  this  occurred  General 
Young  was  stricki-n  down  with  fever.  General  Wheeler, 
who  had  commanded  the  Cavalry  Division,  was  put  in 
general  charge  of  the  left  wing  of  the  arniy,  which  fought 
before  the  city  itself.  Brigadier-General  Sam  Sumner, 
an  excellent  officer,  who  had  the  second  cavalry  brigade, 
took  command  of  the  cavalry  division,  and  Wood  took 
command  of  our  brigade,  while,  to  my  intense  delight, 
I  got  my  regiment.  I  therefore  had  command  of  the  regi- 
ment before  the  stiflFest  fighting  occurred.  Later,  when 
Wood  was  put  in  command  in  Santiago,  I  became  the 
brigade  commander. 

Late  in  the  evening  we  camped  at  El  Poso.  There  were 
two  regular  officers,  the  brigade  commander's  aides.  Lieu- 
tenants A.  L.  Mills  and  W.  E.  Shipp,  who  were  camped  by 
our  regiment.  Each  of  my  men  had  food  in  his  haversack, 
but  I  had  none,  and  I  would  have  gone  supperless  to  bed 
if  Mills  and  Shipp  had  not  given  me  out  of  their  scanty 
stores  a  big  sandwich,  which  I  shared  with  my  orderly, 
who  also  had  nothing.  Next  morning  my  body  servant 
Marshall,  an  ex-soldier  of  the  Ninth  (Colored)  Cavalry,  a 
fine  and  faithful  fellow,  had  turned  up  and  I  was  able  in  my 
turn  to  ask  Mills  and  Shipp,  who  had  eaten  all  their  food 
the  preceding  evening,  to  take  breakfast  with  me.  A  few 
hours  later  gallant  Shipp  was  dead,  and  Mills,  an  exception- 
ally able  officer,  had  been  shot  through  the  head  from  side  to 
side,  just  back  of  the  eyes ;  yet  he  lived,  although  one  eye 
was  blinded,  and  before  I  left  the  Presidency  I  gave  him 
his  commission  as  Brigadier-General. 

Early  in  the  morning  our  artillery  began  firing  from  the 
hill-crest  immediately  in  front  of  where  our  men  were 
camped.  Several  of  the  regiment  were  killed  and  wounded 
by  the  shrapnel  of  the  return  fire  of  the  Spaniards.  One 
of  the  shrapnel  bullets  fell  on  my  wrist  and  raised  a  bump 


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i,:»ies'*'.    New     '■_■'«  '  4f,■;•^ 


262    THEODORE    ROOSE\ELT  —  AX    AUTOBIO(}RAPHY 


as  big  as  a  hickory  nut,  but  did  not  even  break  the  skin. 
Tlien  we  were  marched  down  from  the  hill  f)n  a  muddy  road 
through  thick  jungle  towards  Santiago.  The  heat  was 
great,  and  we  strolled  into  the  fight  with  no  definite  idea  on 
the  part  of  any  one  as  to  what  we  were  to  do  or  what  would 
happen.  There  was  no  plan  that  our  left  wing  was  to  make 
a  serious  fight  that  day ;  and  as  there  were  no  plans,  it 
was  naturally  exceedingly  hard  to  get  orders,  and  each  of 
us  had  to  act  largely  on  his  own  responsibility. 

Lawton's  infantry  division  attacked  the  little  village  of 
El  Caney,  some  miles  to  the  right.  Kent's  infantry  division 
and  Sumner's  dismounted  cavalry  division  were  supposed 
to  retain  the  Spanish  army  in  Santiago  until  Lawton  had 
captured  El  Caney.  Spanish  towns  and  villages,  however, 
with  their  massive  buildings,  are  natural  fortifications,  as 
the  French  found  in  the  Peninsular  War,  and  as  both  the 
French  and  our  people  found  in  Mexico.  The  Spanish 
troops  in  El  Caney  fought  very  bravely,  as  did  the  Spanish 
troops  in  front  of  us,  and  it  was  late  in  the  afternoon  before 
Lawton  accomplished  his  task. 

Meanwhile  we  of  the  left  wing  had  by  degrees  become 
involved  in  a  fight  which  toward  the  end  became  not  even 
a  colonel's  fight,  but  a  squad  leader's  fight.  The  cavalry 
division  was  put  at  the  head  of  the  line.  We  were  told  to 
march  forward,  cross  a  little  river  in  front,  and  then,  turning 
to  the  right,  march  up  alongside  the  stream  until  we  con- 
nected with  Lawton.  Incidentally,  this  movement  would 
not  have  brought  us  into  touch  with  Lawton  in  any  ev^Mit. 
But  we  speedily  had  to  abandon  any  thought  of  carrying  it 
out.  The  maneuver  brought  us  within  fair  range  of  the 
Spanish  intrenchments  along  the  line  of  hills  which  we  called 
the  San  Juan  Hills,  because  on  one  of  them  was  the  San 
Juan  blockhouse.  On  that  day  my  regiment  had  the  lead 
of  the  second  brigade,  and  we  marched  down  the  trail 
following  in  trace  behind  the  first  brigade.  Apparently  the 
Spaniards  could  not  make  up  their  minds  what  to  do  as  the 
three  regular  regiments  of  the  first  brigade  crossed  and  de- 
filed along  the  other  bank  of  the  stream,  but  when  our  regi- 
ment was  crossing  they  began  to  fire  at  us. 


THE   WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       263 


Under  this  flank  fire  it  soon  became  impossible  to  continue 
the  march.  The  first  brigade  halted,  deployed,  and  finally 
began  to  fire  back.  Then  our  brigade  was  haited.  From 
time  to  time  some  of  our  men  would  fall,  and  I  sent  repeated 
word  to  the  rear  to  try  to  get  authority  to  attack  the  hills  in 
front.  Finally  General  Sumner,  who  was  fighting  the  divi- 
sion in  fine  shape,  sent  word  to  advance.  The  word  was 
brought  to  me  by  Mills,  who  said  that  my  orders  were  to 
support  the  regulars  in  the  assault  on  the  hills,  and  that  my 
objective  would  be  the  red-ti  ed  ranch-house  in  front,  on  a 
hill  which  we  afterwards  christened  Kettle  Hill.  I  mention 
Mill;,  saying  this  because  it  was  exactly  the  kind  of  definite 
order  the  giving  of  which  does  so  much  to  insure  success  in 
a  fight,  as  it  prevents  all  obscurity  as  to  what  is  to  be  done. 
The  order  to  attack  did  not  reach  the  first  brigade  until 
after  we  ourselves  reached  it,  so  that  at  first  there  was  doubt 
on  the  part  of  their  oflRcers  whether  they  were  at  liberty 
to  join  in  the  advance. 

I  had  not  enjoyed  the  Guasimas  fight  at  all,  because  I 
had  been  so  uncertain  as  to  what  I  ought  to  do.  But  the 
San  Juan  fight  was  entirely  diflFerent.  The  Spaniards  had  a 
hard"  position  to  attack,  it  is  true,  but  we  could  see  them, 
and  I  knew  exactly  how  to  proceed.  I  kept  on  horseback, 
merely  because  I  found  it  difficult  to  convey  orders  along 
the  line,  as  the  men  were  lying  down  ;  and  it  is  always  hard  to 
get  men  to  start  when  they  cannot  see  whether  their  com- 
rades are  also  going.  So  I  rode  up  and  down  the  lines,  keep- 
ing them  straightened  out,  and  gradually  worked  through  line 
after  line  until  I  found  myself  at  the  head  of  the  regiment. 
By  the  time  I  had  reached  the  lines  of  the  regulars  of  the 
first  b;,i;ade  I  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  silly 
to  stay  in  the  valley  firing  at  the  hills,  because  that  was 
really'where  we  were  most  exposed,  and  that  the  thing  to  do 
was  to  try  to  rush  the  intrenchments.  Where  I  struck  the 
regulars  there  was  no  one  of  superior  rank  to  mine,  and 
after  asking  why  they  did  not  charge,  and  being  answered 
that  they  had  no  orders,  I  said  I  would  give  the  order.  There 
was  naturally  a  little  reluctance  shown  by  the  elderly  officer 
in  command  to  accept  my  order,  so  1  said,  "Then  let  my  men 


M 


m 


264    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


'4. 


through,  sir,"  and  I  marched  through,  followed  by  my 
grinning  men.  The  younger  officers  and  the  enlisted  men 
of  the  regulars  jumped  up  and  joined  us.  I  waved  my 
hat,  and  we  went  up  the  hill  with  a  rush.  Having  taken  it, 
we  looked  across  at  the  Spaniards  in  the  trenches  under  the 
San  Juan  blockhouse  to  our  left,  which  Hawkins's  brigade 
was  assaulting.  I  ordered  our  men  to  open  fire  on  the 
Spaniards  in  the  trenches. 

Memory  plays  funny  tricks  in  such  a  fight,  where  things 
happen  quickly,  and  all  kinds  of  mental  images  succeed 
or;  another  in  a  detached  kind  of  way,  while  the  work  goes 
on.  As  I  gave  the  order  in  question  there  slipped  through 
my  mind  Mahan's  account  of  Nelson's  orders  that  each  ship 
as  it  sailed  forward,  if  it  saw  another  ship  engaged  with  an 
enemy's  ship,  should  rake  the  latter  as  it  passed.  When 
Hawkins's  soldiers  captured  the  blockhouse,  I,  very  much 
elated,  ordered  a  charge  on  my  own  hook  to  a  line  of  hills 
still  farther  on.  Hardly  anybody  heard  this  order,  however ; 
only  four  men  started  with  me,  three  of  whom  were  shot. 
I  gave  one  of  them,  who  was  only  wounded,  my  canteen 
of  water,  and  ran  back,  much  irritated  that  I  had  not  been 
followed  —  which  was  quite  unjustifiable,  because  I  found 
that  nobody  had  heard  my  orders.  General  Sumner  had 
come  up  by  this  time,  and  I  asked  his  permission  to  lead  the 
charge.  He  ordered  me  to  do  so,  and  this  time  away  we 
went,  and  stormed  the  Spanish  intrenchments.  There 
was  some  close  fighting,  and  we  took  a  few  prisoners.  We 
also  captured  the  Spanish  provisions,  and  ate  them  that 
night  with  great  relish.  One  jof  the  items  was  salted  flying- 
fish,  by  the  way.  There  were  also  bottles  of  wine,  and  jugs 
of  fiery  spirit,  and  as  soon  as  possible  I  had  these  broken, 
although  not  before  one  or  two  of  my  men  had  taken  too 
much  liquor.  Lieutenant  Howze,  of  the  regulars,  an  aide 
of  General  Sumner's,  brought  me  an  order  to  halt  where 
I  was ;  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  return  until  he  had 
spent  an  hour  or  two  with  us  under  fire.  The  Spaniards 
attempted  a  counter-attack  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon, 
but  were  driven  back  without  effort,  our  men  laughing 
and  cheering  as  they  rose  to  fire;    because  hitherto  they 


THE   WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE   UNREADY       265 

had  been  assaulting  breastworks,  or  lying  still  under  artillery 
fire,  and  they  were  glad  to  get  a  chance  to  shoot  at  the 
Spaniards  in  the  open.  We  lay  on  our  arms  that  night 
and  as  we  were  drenched  with  sweat,  and  had  no  blankets 
save  a  few  we  took  from  the  dead  Spaniards,  we  found  even 
the  tropic  night  chilly  before  morning  came. 

During  the  afternoon's  fighting,  while  I  was  the  highest 
officer  at  our  immediate  part  of  the  front,  Captains  Boughton 
and  Morton  of  the  regular  cavalry,  two  as  fine  officers  as 
any  man  could  wish  to  have  beside  him  in  battle,  came  along 
the  firing  line  to  tell  me  that  they  had  heard  a  rumor  that 
we  might  fall  back,  and  that  they  wished  to  record  their 
emphatic  protest  against  any  such  course.  I  did  not  believe 
there  was  any  truth  in  the  rumor,  for  the  Spaniards  were 
utterly  incapable  of  any  effective  counter-attack.  However, 
late  in  the  evening,  after  the  fight,  General  Wheeler  visited 
us  at  the  front,  and  he  told  me  to  keep  myself  in  readiness, 
as  at  any  moment  it  might  be  decided  to  fall  back.  Jack 
Greenway  was  beside  me  when  General  Wheeler  was  speak- 
ing. I  answered,  "Well,  General,  I  really  don't  know  whether 
we  would  obey  an  order  to  fall  back.  We  can  take  that 
city  by  a  rush,  and  if  we  have  to  move  out  of  here  at  all 
I  should  be  inclined  to  make  the  rush  in  the  right  direction," 
Greenway  nodded  an  eager  assent.  The  old  General,  after 
a  moment's  pause,  expressed  his  hearty  agreement,  and  said 
that  he  would  see  that  there  was  no  falling  back.  He  had 
been  very  sick  for  a  couple  of  days,  but,  sick  as  he  was,  he 
managed  to  get  into  the  fight.  He  was  a  gamecock  if  every 
there  was  one,  but  he  was  in  very  bad  physical  shape  on 
the  day  of  the  fight.  If  there  had  been  any  one  in  high 
command  to  supervise  and  press  the  attack  that  afternoon, 
we  would  have  gone  right  into  Santiago.  In  my  part  of 
the  line  the  advance  was  halted  only  because  we  received 
orders  not  to  move  forward,  but  to  stay  on  the  crest  of  the 
captured  hill  and  hold  it. 

We  are  always  told  that  three-o'clock-in-the-morning 
courage  is  the  most  desirable  kind.  Well,  my  men  and  the 
regu'ars  of  the  cavalry  had  just  that  brand  of  courage.  At 
about  three  o'clock  on  the  morning  after  the  first  fight, 


n 


m 


"»7 


266    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


shooting  began  In  our  front  and  there  was  an  alarm  of  a 
Spanish  advance.  I  was  never  more  pleased  than  to  see 
the  way  in  which  the  hungry,  tired,  shabby  men  all  jumped 
up  and  ran  forward  to  the  hill-crest,  so  as  to  be  ready 
for  the  attack;  which,  however,  did  not  come.  As  soon 
as  the  sun  rose  thi  Spaniards  again  opened  upon  us  with 
artillery.  A  shell  burst  between  Dave  Goodrich  and  my- 
self, blacking  us  with  powder,  and  killing  and  wounding 
several  of  the  men  immediately  behind  us. 

Next  day  the  fight  turned  into  a  siege;  there  were  some 
stirring  incidents ;  but  for  the  most  part  it  was  trench  work. 
A  fortnight  later  Santiago  surrendered.  Wood  won  his 
brigadier-generalship  by  the  capital  way  in  which  he  handled 
his  brigade  in  the  fight,  and  in  the  following  siege.  He  was 
put  in  command  of  the  captured  city;  and  in  a  few  days 
I  succeeded  to  the  command  of  the  brigade. 

The  health  of  the  troops  was  not  good,  and  speedily 
became  very  bad.  There  was  some  dysentery,  and  a  little 
yellow  fever;  but  most  of  the  trouble  was  from  a  severe 
form  of  malarial  fever.  The  Washington  authorities  had 
behaved  better  than  those  in  actual  command  of  the  expedi- 
tion at  one  crisis.  Immediately  after  the  first  days'  fighting 
around  Santiago  the  latter  had  hinted  by  cable  to  Washington 
that  they  might  like  to  withdraw,  and  Wasliington  had  em- 
phatically vetoed  the  proposal.  I  record  this  all  the  more 
gladly  because  there  were  not  too  many  gleam;,  of  good  sense 
shown  in  the  home  management  of  the  war,  although  I 
wish  to  repeat  that  the  real  blame  for  this  rested  primarily 
with  us  ourselves,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  who  had 
for  years  pursued  in  military  matters  a  policy  that  rendered 
it  certain  that  there  would  be  ineptitude  and  failure  in 
high  places  if  ever  a  crisis  came.  After  the  siege  the  people 
in  Washington  showed  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  con- 
ditions around  Santiago,  and  proposed  to  keep  the  army 
there.  This  would  have  meant  that  at  least  three-fourths  of 
the  men  would  either  have  died  or  have  been  permanently 
invalided,  as  a  virulent  form  of  malaria  was  widespread, 
and  there  was  a  steady  growth  of  dysentery  and  other 
complaints.     No  object  of  any  kind  was  to  be  gained  by 


THE  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       267 

keeping  the  army  in  or  near  the  captured  city.  General 
Shafter  tried  his  best  to  get  the  Washington  authorities  to 
order  the  army  home.  As  he  failed  to  accomplish  anything, 
he  called  a  council  of  the  division  and  brigade  commanders 
and  the  chief  medical  officers  to  consult  over  the  situation. 

Although  I  had  command  of  a  brigade,  I  was  only  a  colonel, 
and  so  I  did  not  intend  to  attend,  but  the  General  informed 
me  that  I  was  particularly  wanted,  and  accordingly  I  went. 
At  the  council  General  Shafter  asked  the  medical  authorities 
as  to  conditions,  and  they  united  in  informing  him  that  they 
were  very  bad,  and  were  certain  to  grow  much  worse ;  and 
that  in  order  to  avoid  frightful  ravages  from  disease,  chiefly 
due  to  malaria,  the  army  should  be  sent  back  at  once  to  some 
part  of  the  northern  United  States.  The  General  then  ex- 
plained that  he  could  not  get  the  War  Department  to  under- 
stand the  situation ;  that  he  could  not  get  the  attention  of 
the  public ;  and  that  he  felt  that  there  should  be  some  au- 
thoritative publication  which  would  make  the  War  Depart- 
ment take  action  before  it  was  too  late  to  avert  the  ruin  of  the 
army.     All  who  were  in  the  room  expressed  their  agreement. 

Then  the  reason  for  my  being  present  came  out.  It  was 
explained  to  me  by  General  Shafter,  and  by  others,  that 
as  I  was  a  volunteer  officer  and  intended  immediately  to 
return  to  civil  life,  I  could  aflford  to  take  risks  wliich  the 
regular  army  men  could  not  afford  to  take  and  ought  not  to 
be  expected  to  take,  and  that  therefore  I  ought  to  make 
the  publication  in  question ;  because  to  incur  the  hostility 
of  the  War  Department  would  not  make  any  diffc-encc  to  me, 
whereas  it  would  be  destructive  to  the  men  in  the  regular 
army,  or  to  those  who  hoped  to  get  into  the  regular  army. 
I  thought  this  true,  and  said  I  would  write  a  letter  ()r  make 
a  statement  which  could  then  be  published.  Brigadier- 
General  .\mes,  who  was  in  the  same  postion  that  I  was, 
also  announced  that  he  would  make  a  statement. 

When  I  left  the  meeting  it  was  understood  that  I  was  to 
make  my  statement  as  an  interview  in  the  press  ;  but  Wood, 
who  was  by  that  time  Brigadier-General  commanding 
the  city  of  Santiago,  gave  me  a  quiet  hint  to  put  my  state- 
ment in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  General  Shafter,  and  this  I 


:68    THl<:ODORE    ROOSKVELT  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


accordingly  did.  When  I  had  written  my  letter,  the  corre- 
spondent of  the  Associated  Press,  who  had  been  informed 
by  others  of  what  had  occurred,  accompanied  me  to  General 
Shafter.  I  presented  the  letter  to  General  Shafter,  who 
waved  it  away  and  said:  "I  don't  want  to  take  it;  do 
whatever  you  wish  with  it."  I,  however,  insisted  on  handing 
it  to  him,  whereupon  he  shoved  it  toward  the  correspondent 
of  the  Associated  Press,  who  took  hold  of  it,  and  I  released 
my  hold.  General  Ames  made  a  statement  direct  to  the 
correspondent,  and  also  sent  a  cable  to  the  Assistant  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy  at  Washington,  a  copy  of  which  he  gave 
to  the  correspondent.  By  this  time  the  other  division  and 
brigade  commanders  who  were  present  felt  that  they  had 
better  take  action  themselves.  They  united  in  a  round 
robin  to  General  Shafter,  which  General  Wood  dictated, 
and  which  was  signed  by  Generals  Kent,  Bates,  Chaffee, 
Sumner,  Ludlow,  Ames,  and  Wood,  and  by  myself.  General 
Wood  handed  this  to  General  Shafter,  and  it  was  made 
public  by  General  Shafter  precisely  as  mine  was  made 
public'  Later  I  was  much  amused  when  General  Shafter 
stated  that  he  could  not  imagine  how  my  letter  and  the  round 
robin  got  out  !  When  I  saw  this  statement,  I  appreciated 
how  wise  Wood  had  been  in  hinting  to  me  not  to  act  on  the 
suggestion  of  the  General  that  I  should  make  a  statement  to 
the  newspapers,  but  to  put  my  statement  in  the  form  of  a 
letter  to  him  as  my  superior  officer,  a  letter  which  I  de- 
livered to  him.  Both  the  letter  and  the  round  robin  were 
written  at  General  Shafter's  wish,  and  at  the  unanimous 
suggestion  of  all  the  commanding  and  medical  officers  of 
the  Fifty  Army  Corps,  and  both  were  published  by  General 
Shafter. 

In  a  regiment  the  prime  need  is  to  have  fighting  men ; 
the  prime  virtue  is  to  be  able  and  eager  to  fight  with  the 

'General  Wood  writes  me:  "The  representative  of  the  Associated  Press  was 
very  anxious  to  get  a  copy  of  this  despatch  or  see  it,  and  I  told  him  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  have  it  or  see  it.  I  then  went  in  to  General  Shafter  and  stated  the  case 
to  him,  handing  iiim  tiic  despatch,  saying,  'The  matter  is  now  in  your  hands.'  He, 
Genera!  Shafter,  then  said,  '1  don't  care  whether  this  gentleman  has  it  or  not,' 
and  I  left  then.  When  I  went  back  the  General  told  me  he  had  given  the  Press 
representative  a  copy  of  the  despatch,  and  that  he  had  gone  to  the  office  with  it." 


THE  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       269 

utmost  effectiveness.  I  have  never  believed  that  this  was 
incompatible  with  other  virtues.  On  the  contrary,  while 
there  are  of  course  exceptions,  I  believe  that  on  the  average 
the  best  fighting  men  are  also  the  best  citizens.  I  do  not 
believe  that  a  finer  set  of  natural  soldiers  than  the  men  of 
my  regiment  could  have  been  found  anywhere,  and  they 
were  first-class  citizens  in  civil  life  also.  One  fact  may  per- 
haps be  worthy  of  note.  Whenever  we  were  in  camp  and 
so  fixed  that  we  con. J  have  regular  meals,  we  used  to  have 
a  general  officers'  mess,  over  which  I  of  course  presided. 
During  our  entire  service  there  was  never  a  foul  or  inde- 
cent word  uttered  at  the  officers'  mess  —  I  mean  this  literally ; 
and  there  was  very  little  swearing  —  although  now  and  then 
in  the  fighting,  if  there  was  a  moment  when  swearing  seemed 
to  be  the  best  method  of  reaching  the  heart  of  the  matter, 
it  was  resorted  to. 

The  men  I  cared  for  most  in  the  regiment  were  the  men 
who  did  the  best  work;  and  therefore  my  liking  for  them 
was  obliged  to  take  the  shape  of  exposing  them  to  most 
fatigue  and  hardship,  of  demanding  from  them  the  greatest 
service,  and  of  making  them  incur  the  greatest  risk.  Once 
I  kept  Greenway  and  Goodrich  at  work  for  forty-eight 
hours,  without  sleeping,  and  with  very  little  food,  fighting 
and  digging  trenches.  I  freely  sent  the  men  for  whom  I 
cared  most,  to  where  death  might  smite  them ;  and  death 
often  smote  them  —  as  it  did  the  two  best  officers  in 
my  regiment,  Allyn  Capron  and  Bucky  O'Neil.  My  men 
would  not  have  respected  me  had  I  acted  otherwise.  Their 
creed  was  my  creed.  The  life  even  of  the  most  useful  man, 
of  the  best  citizen,  is  not  to  be  hoarded  if  there  be  need  to 
spend  it.  I  felt,  and  feel,  this  about  others ;  and  of  course 
also  about  myself.  This  is  one  reason  why  I  have  always 
felt  impatient  contempt  for  the  effort  to  abolish  the  death 
penalty  on  account  of  sympathy  with  criminals.  I  am 
willing  to  listen  to  arguments  in  favor  of  abolishing  the 
death  penalty  so  far  as  they  arc  based  purely  on  grounds  of 
public  expediency,  although  these  arguments  have  never 
convinced  mc.  But  inasmuch  as,  without  hesitation,  in  the 
performance  of  duty,  I  have  again  and  again  sent  good  and 


ill  I 


270    THKODORK    ROOSrA  KLT  —  AN    AUTOBKKIRAJMIV 


It 


gallant  and  upright  men  tf)  die,  it  seems  to  me  the  height 
of  a  folly  both  mischievous  and  mawkish  tc)  contend  that 
criminals  who  have  deserved  death  shf)uld  nevertheless  be 
allowed  to  shirk  it.  No  brave  and  good  man  can  properly 
shirk  death;  and  no  criminal  who  has  earned  death  should 
be  allowed  to  shirk  it. 

One  of  the  best  men  with  our  regiment  was  the  British 
military  attache.  Captain  Arthur  Lee,  an  old  friend.  The 
other  military  attaches  were  herded  together  at  headquarters 
and  saw  little.  Captain  Lee,  who  had  known  me  in  Wash- 
ington, escaped  and  stayed  with  the  regiment.  We  grew  to 
feel  that  he  was  one  of  us,  and  made  him  an  honorary  member. 
There  were  two  other  honorary  members.  One  was  Richard 
Harding  Davis,  who  was  with  us  continually  and  who  per- 
formed valuable  service  on  the  fighting  line.  The  other 
was  a  regular  officer.  Lieutenant  Parker,  who  had  a  battery  of 
gatlings.  We  were  with  this  battery  throughout  the  San 
juan  fighting,  and  we  grew  to  have  the  strongest  admira- 
tion for  Parker  as  a  soldier  and  the  strongest  liking  for 
him  as  a  man.  During  our  brief  campaign  we  were  closely 
and  intimately  thrown  with  various  regular  officers  of  the 
type  of  Mills,  Howzc,  and  Parker.  We  felt  not  merely  fond- 
ness for  them  as  officers  and  gentlemen,  but  pride  in  them  as 
Americans.  It  is  a  fine  thing  to  feel  that  we  have  in  the 
army  and  in  the  navy  modest,  efficient,  gallant  gentlemen  of 
this  type,  doing  such  disinterested  work  for  the  honor  of 
the  flag  and  of  the  Nation.  No  American  can  overpay 
the  debt  of  gratitude  w-e  all  of  us  owe  to  the  officers  and 
enlisted  men  of  the  army  and  of  the  navy. 

Of  course  with  a  regiment  of  our  type  there  was  much  to 
iearn  both  among  the  officers  and  the  men.  There  were 
all  kinds  of  funny  incidents.  One  of  my  men,  an  ex-cow- 
puncher  and  former  round-up  cook,  a  very  good  shot  and 
rider,  got  into  trouble  on  the  way  down  on  the  transport. 
He  understood  entirely  that  he  had  to  obey  the  officers  of 
his  own  regiment,  but,  like  so  many  volunteers,  or  at  least 
like  so  many  volunteers  of  my  regiment,  he  did  not  under- 
stand that  this  obligation  extended  to  officers  of  other  n  gi- 
ments.     One  of  the  regular  officers  on  the  transport  ordered 


TMK  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       271 


him  to  do  something  which  he  declined  to  do.  When  the 
otRcer  told  him  to  ct)nsider  himself  under  arrest,  he  responded 
In  offering  to  tight  him  for  a  trifling  consideration.  He  was 
l)roiighl  lnf()r(  a  court  martial  which  sentenced  him  to 
a  year's  imprisotiment  at  hard  labor  with  dishonorable 
discharge,  and  the  major-general  commanding  the  division 
approvid  the  sentence. 

\\'e  were  on  the  transport.  There  was  no  hard  labor 
to  do  ;  and  the  prison  consisted  of  another  cow-puncher  who 
kept  guard  over  him  with  his  carbine,  eviciently  divided  in 
his  feelings  as  to  whether  he  would  like  most  to  shoot  him  or 
to  let  him  go.  When  we  landed,  somebody  told  the  prisoner 
that  I  intended  to  punish  him  by  keeping  him  with  the 
baggage.  He  at  once  came  co  me  in  great  agitation,  saying  : 
"Colonel,  they  say  you're  going  to  leave  me  with  the  baggage 
when  the  fight  is  on.  Colonel,  if  you  do  that,  I  will  never 
show  my  face  in  Arizona  again.  Colonel,  if  you  will  let  me 
go  to  the  front,  I  promise  I  will  obey  any  one  you  say; 
any  one  you  say,  Colonel,"  with  the  evident  feeling  that,  after 
this  concession,  I  could  not,  as  a  gentleman,  refuse  his 
request.  Accordingly  I  answered  :  "Shields,  there  is  no  one 
in  this  regiment  more  entitled  to  be  shot  than  you  are,  and 
you  shall  go  to  the  front."  His  gratitude  was  great,  and 
he  kept  repeating,  "  I'll  never  forget  this.  Colonel,  never." 
Nor  did  he.  When  we  got  very  hard  up,  he  would  now  and 
then  manage  to  get  hold  of  some  flour  and  sugar,  and 
would  cook,  a  doughnut  and  bring  it  round  to  me,  and 
watch  me  with  a  delighted  smile  as  I  ate  it.  He  behaved 
extremely  well  in  both  fights,  and  after  the  second  one  I  had 
him  formally  before  me  and  remitted  his  sentence  —  some- 
thing which  of  course  I  had  not  the  slightest  power  to  do, 
although  at  the  time  it  seemed  natural  and  proper  to  me. 

When  we  came  to  be  mustered  out,  the  regular  officer  who 
was  doing  the  mustering,  after  all  the  men  had  been  dis- 
charged, finally  asked  me  where  the  prisoner  was.  I  said, 
"What  prisoner.'"  He  said,  "The  prisoner,  the  man  who 
was  sentenced  to  a  vear's  imprisonment  with  hard  labor  and 
dishonorable  dis 


irge. 


pardc 


to  which  he  responded,  "  I  beg  your  pardon  ;  you  did  what 


5" 


272    THEODORE   ROOSENELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHV 

This  made  me  grasp  the  fact  that  I  had  exceeded  authority, 
and  I  could  only  answer,  "Well,  I  did  pardon  him,  anyhow, 
and  he  has  gone  with  the  rest";  whereupon  the  mustering- 
out  officer  sank  back  in  his  chair  and  remarked,  "He  was 
sentenced  by  a  court  martial,  and  the  sentence  was  approved 
by  the  major-general  commanding  the  division.  Vou  were 
a  lieutenant-colonel,  and  you  pardoned  him.  VVell,  it  was 
nervy,  that's  all  I'll  say." 

The  simple  fact  was  that  under  the  circumstances  it  was 
necessary    for    me    to   enforce   discipline    and    control    the 


On  thk  Firing  Link. 


regiment,  and  thc.cfore  to  reward  and  punish  individuals  in 
whatever  way  tJie  exigencies  demanded.  I  often  explained 
to  the  men  what  the  reasons  for  an  order  were,  the  first 
time  it  was  issued  if  there  was  any  trouble  on  their  part  in 
understanding  wh  it  they  were  required  to  do.  They  were 
very  intelligent  anil  very  eager  to  do  their  duty,  and  I  hardly 
ever  had  any  difficulty  the  second  time  with  them.  If, 
however,  there  was  the  slightest  willful  shirking  of  duty  or 
insubordination,  I  punished  instantly  and  mercilessly,  and 
the  whole  regiment  cordially  backed  me  up.  To  have 
punished  men  for  faults  and  shortcomings  which  they  had 
no  opportunity  to  know  were  such  would  have  been  as  unwise 
as  to  have  permitted  any  of  the  occasional  bad  characters 


THK  WAR  OF   AMKRICA  TUK   INRKADV       273 


to  exercise  the  slightest  license.  It  was  a  regiment  which 
was  sensitive  about  its  dignity  and  was  very  keenly  alive  to 
justice  and  to  courtesy,  hut  wiiich  cordially  approved  ab- 
sence of  mollycoddling,  insistence  upon  the  performance 
of  duty,  and  summary  punishment  of  wrong-doing. 

In  the  final  fighting  at  San  Juan,  when  we  captured  one 
of  the  trenches.  Jack  (Jreenway  had  seized  a  Spaniard, 
and  shortly  afterwards  I  found  Jack  leading  his  captive 
round  with  a  string.  I  told  him  to  turn  him  over  to  a 
man  who  had  two  or  three  other  captives,  so  that  they  should 
all  be  taken  to  the  rear.  It  was  the  only  time  I  ever  saw 
Jack  look  aggrieved.  "Why,  Colonel,  can't  I  keep  him 
for  myself  ?"  he  asked,  plaintively.  I  think  he  had  an  idea 
that  as  a  trophy  of  his  b^w  and  spear  the  Spaniard  would 
make  a  fine  body  servant. 

One  reason  that  we  never  had  the  slightest  trouble  in  the 
regiment  was  because,  when  we  got  down  to  hard  pan, 
officers  and  men  shared  exactly  alike.  It  is  all  right  to  have 
differences  in  food  and  the  like  in  times  of  peace  and  plenty, 
when  everybody  is  comfortable.  But  in  really  hard  times 
officers  and  men  must  share  alike  if  the  best  work  is  to  be 
done.  As  long  as  I  had  nothing  but  two  hardtacks,  which 
was  the  allowance  to  each  man  on  the  morning  alter  the 
San  Juan  fight,  no  one  could  complain  ;  but  if  I  had  had  any 
private  little  luxuries  the  men  would  very  naturally  have 
realized  keenly  their  own  shortages. 

Soon  after  the  Guasimas  fight  we  were  put  on  short 
commons ;  and  as  I  knew  that  a  good  deal  of  food  had 
been  landed  and  was  on  the  beach  at  Siboney,  I  marched 
thirty  or  forty  of  the  men  down  to  see  if  I  could  not  get  some 
and  bring  it  up.  I  finally  found  a  commissary  officer, 
and  he  asked  me  what  I  wanted,  and  I  answered,  anything 
he  had.  So  he  told  me  to  look  about  for  myself.  I  found 
a  number  of  sacks  of  beans,  I  think  about  eleven  hundred 
pounds,  on  the  beach ;  ard  told  the  officer  that  I  wanted 
eleven  hundred  pounds  of  beans.  He  produced  a  book  of 
regulations,  and  showed  me  the  appropriate  section  and  sub- 
division which  announced  that  beans  were  issued  only  for 
the  officers'  mess.     This  did  me  no  good,  and  I  told  him  so. 


lU 


274    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AX    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

He  said  he  was  sorry,  and  I  answered  that  he  was  not  as 
sorry  as  I  was.  I  then  "studied  on  it,"  as  Br'er  Rabbit 
would  say,  and  came  back  with  a  request  for  eleven  hundred 
pounds  of  beans  for  the  officers'  mess.  He  said,  "Why, 
Colonel,  your  officers  can't  eat  eleven  hundred  pounds  of 
beans,"  to  which  I  responded,  "You  don't  know  what 
appetites  my  officers  have."  He  then  said  he  would  send 
the  requisition  to  Washington.  I  told  him  I  was  quite 
willing,  so  long  as  he  gave  me  the  beans.  He  was  a  good 
fellow,  so  we  finally  effected  a  working  compromise  —  he 
got  the  requisition  and  I  got  the  beans,  although  he  warned 
me  that  the  price  would  probably  be  deducted  from  my 
salary. 

Under  some  regulation  or  other  only  the  regular  supply 
trains  were  allowed  to  act,  and  we  were  supposed  not  to  have 
any  horses  or  mules  in  the  regiment  itself.  This  was  very 
pretty  in  theory ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  supply  trains 
were  not  numeroMS  enough.  My  men  had  a  natural  genius 
for  acquiring  horseflesh  in  odd  ways,  and  I  continually 
found  that  they  had  staked  out  in  the  brush  various  captured 
Spanish  cavalry  horses  and  Cuban  ponies  and  abandoned 
commissary  mules.  Putting  these  together,  I  would  organize 
a  small  pack  train  and  work  it  industriously  for  a  day  or 
two,  until  they  learned  about  it  at  headquarters  and  con- 
fiscated it.  Then  I  would  have  to  wait  for  a  week  or  so 
until  my  men  had  accumulated  some  more  ponies,  horses,  and 
mules,  the  regiment  meanwhile  living  in  plenty  on  what  we 
had  got  before  the  train  was  confiscated. 

All  of  our  men  were  good  at  accumulating  horses,  but  with- 
in our  own  ranks  I  think  we  were  inclined  to  award  the  palm 
to  our  chaplain.  There  was  not  a  better  man  in  the  regi- 
ment than  the  chaplain,  and  there  could  not  have  been  a 
better  chaplain  for  our  men.  He  took  care  of  the  sick  and 
the  wounded,  he  never  spared  himself,  and  he  did  every 
duty.  In  addition,  he  had  a  natural  aptitude  for  acquiring 
mules,  which  made  some  admirer,  when  the  regiment  was  dis- 
banded, propose  that  we  should  have  a  special  medal 
struck  for  him,  with,  on  the  obverse,  "A  Mule  passant  and 
Chaplain  regardant."     After  the  surrender  of  Santiago,  a 


THK   WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       275 


Philadelphia  clergyman  whom  I  knew  came  down  to  General 
Wheeler's  headquarters,  and  after  visiting  him  announced 
that  he  intended  to  call  on  the  Rough  Riders,  because  he 
knew  their  colonel.  One  of  (General  Wheeler's  aides,  Lieu- 
tenant Steele,  who  liked  us  both  individually  and  as  a  regi- 
ment, and  who  appreciated  some  of  our  ways,  asked 
the  clergyman,  after  he  had  announced  that  he  knew 
Colonel  Roosevelt,  "  But  do  you  know  Colonel  Roosevelt's 
regiment  ?"  "Xo,"  said  the  clergyman.  "Wry  well,  then, 
let  n-.c  give  you  a  piece  of  advice.  When  you  go  down 
to  see  the  Colonel,  don't  let  your  horse  out  of  your 
sight;  and  if  the  chaplain  is  there,  don't  get  olT  the 
horse  !" 

We  came  back  to  Montauk  Point  and  soon  after  were 
disbanded.  We  had  been  in  the  service  only  a  little  over 
four  months.  There  are  no  four  months  of  my  life  to 
which  I  look  back  with  more  pride  and  satisfaction.  I 
believe  most  earnestly  and  sincerely  in  peace,  but  as  things 
are  yet  in  this  world  the  nation  that  cannot  fight,  the  people 
that  have  lost  the  fighting  edge,  that  have  lost  the  virile 
virtues,  occupy  a  position  as  dangerous  as  it  is  ignoble. 
The  future  greatness  of  America  in  no  small  degree  depends 
upon  the  possession  by  the  average  American  citizen  of 
the  qualities  which  my  men  showed  when  they  served  under 
me  at  Santiago. 

Moreover,  there  is  one  thing  in  connection  with  this  war 
which  it  is  well  that  our  people  should  remember,  our  people 
who  genuinely  love  the  peace  of  righteousness,  the  peace  of 
justice  —  and  I  would  be  ashamed  to  be  other  than  a  lover 
of  the  peace  of  righteousness  and  of  justice.  The  true 
preachers  of  peace,  who  strive  earnestly  to  bring  nearer 
the  day  when  peace  shall  obtain  among  all  peoples,  and 
who  really  do  help  forward  the  cause,  are  men  who 
never  hesitate  to  choose  righteous  war  when  it  is  the 
only  alternative  to  unrighteous  peace.  These  are  the 
men  who,  like  Dr.  Lyman  .Vbbott,  have  backed  every 
genuine  movement  for  peace  in  this  country,  and  who 
nevertheless  recognized  our  clear  duty  to  war  for  the  free- 
dom of  Cuba. 


'.i;:. 


276    THEODORE   R00SE;VELT  —  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

But  there  are  other  men  who  put  peace  ahead  of  righteous- 
ness, and  who  care  so  little  for  facts  that  they  treat  fantastic 
declarations  for  immediate  universal  arbitration  as  being 
valuable,  instead  of  detrimental,  to  the  cause  they  profess 
to  champion,  and  who  seek  to  make  the  United  States  im- 
potent for  international  good  under  the  pretense  of  making 
us  impotent  for  international  evil.  All  the  men  of  this 
kind,  and  all  of  the  organizations  they  have  controlled, 
since  we  began  our  career  as  a  nation,  all  put  together, 
have  not  accomplished  one  hundredth  part  as  much  for  both 
peace  and  righteousness,  have  not  done  one  hundredth  part 
as  much  either  for  ourselves  or  for  other  peoples,  as  was 
accomplished  by  the  people  of  the  United  States  when  they 
fought  the  war  with  Spain  and  with  resolute  good  faith 
and  common  sense  worked  out  the  solution  of  the  problems 
which  sprang  from  the  war. 

Our  army  and  navy,  and  above  all  our  people,  learned 
some  lessons  from  the  Spanish  War,  and  applied  them  to  our 
own  uses.  During  the  following  decade  the  improvement 
in  our  navy  and  army  was  very  great ;  not  in  niaterial  only, 
but  also  in  personnel,  and,  above  all,  in  the  ability  to  handle 
our  forces  in  good-sized  units.  By  1908,  when  our  battle 
fleet  steamed  round  the  world,  the  navy  had  become  in 
every  respect  as  lit  a  fighting  instrument  as  any  other  navy 
in  the  world,  fleet  for  fleet.  Even  in  size  there  was  but  one 
nation,  England,  which  was  completely  out  of  our  class; 
and  in  view  of  our  relations  with  England  and  all  the  English- 
speaking  peoples,  this  was  of  no  consequence.  Of  our  army, 
of  course,  as  much  could  not  be  said.  Nevertheless  the 
improvement  in  efficiency  was  marked.  Our  artillery  was 
still  very  inferior  in  training  and  practice  to  the  artillery 
arm  of  any  one  of  the  great  Powers  such  as  Germany,  France, 
or  Japan  —  a  condition  which  we  only  then  began  to  remedy. 
But  the  workmanlike  speed  and  efficiency  with  which  the 
expedition  of  some  6000  troops  of  all  arms  was  mobilized 
and  transported  to  Cuba  during  the  revolution  of  1908 
showed  that,  as  regards  our  cavalry  and  infantry,  we  had 
at  least  reached  the  point  where  we  could  assemble  and 
h  ndle  in  first-rate  fashion  expeditionary  forces.     This  is 


THE  WAR  OF  AMERICA  THE  UNREADY       277 

mighty  little  to  boast  of,  for  a  Nation  of  our  wealth  and 
population  ;  it  is  not  pleasant  to  compare  it  with  the  extraor- 
dinary feats  of  contemporary  Japan  and  the  Balkan  peoples ; 
but,  such  as  it  is,  it  represents  a  long  stride  m  advance 
over  conditions  as  they  were  in  1898. 


1! 


APPENDIX  A 


A    MANLY    LETTER 

There  was  a  sequel  to  the  "round  robin"  incident  which  caused 
a  little  stir  at  the  moment ;  Secretary  Alger  had  asked  me  to  write 
him  freely  from  time  to  time.  Accordingly,  after  the  surrender  of 
Santiago,  I  wrote  him  begging  that  the  cavalry  division  might 
be  put  into  the  Porto  Rican  fighting,  preparatory  to  what  we  sup- 
posed would  be  the  big  campaign  against  Havana  in  the  fall. 
In  the  letter  I  extolled  the  merits  of  the  Rough  Riders  and  of  the 
Regulars,  announcing  with  much  complacency  that  each  of  our 
regiments  was  worth  "three  of  the  National  Guard  regiments, 
armed  with  their  archaic  black  powder  rifles." '  Secretary  Alger 
believ  '.  mistakenly,  that  I  had  made  public  the  round  robin,  and 
was  1  ;u,  ally  irritated,  and  I  suddenly  received  from  him  a  pub- 
lished loiegram,  not  alluding  to  the  round  robin  incident,  but 
quoting  my  reference  to  the  comparative  merits  of  the  cavalry 
regiments  and  the  National  Guard  regiments  and  rebuking  me  for 
it.  The  publication  of  the  extract  from  my  letter  was  not  cal- 
culated to  help  me  secure  the  votes  of  the  National  Guard  if  I  ever 
became  a  candidate  for  office.  However,  I  did  not  mind  the 
matter  much,  for  I  had  at  the  time  no  idea  of  being  a  candidate 
for  anything  —  while  in  the  campaign  I  ate  and  drank  and  thought 
and  dreamed  regiment  and  nothing  but  regiment,  until  I  got  the 
brigade,  and  then  I  devoted  all  my  thoughts  to  handling  the 
brigade.     Anyhow,  there  was  nothing  I  could  do  about  the  matter. 

When  our  transport  reached  .\Iontauk  Point,  an  army  officer 
came  aboard  and  before  doing  anything  else  handed  me  a  sealed 
letter  from  the  Secretary  of  W-       Kich  ran  as  follows  :  — 


War  Department, 
Washington, 
August  lo,   1898. 
Dear  Col.  Roosevelt  : 

You  have  been  a  most  gallant  officer  and  in  the  battle  before 
Santiago  showed  superb  soldierly  qualities.     I  would  rather  add 

'  I  quote  this  sentence  from  memory;   it  is  substantially  correct. 

278 


APPENDIX 


279 


to,  than  detract  from,  the  honors  you  have  so  fairly  won,  and  I 
wish  you  all  good  things.  In  a  moment  of  aggravation  under 
great  stress  of  feeling,  first  because  I  thought  you  spoke  in  a  dis- 
paraging manner  of  the  volunteers  (probably  without  intent,  but 
because  of  your  great  enthusiasm  for  your  own  men)  and  second 
that  I  believed  your  published  letter  would  embarrass  the  Depart- 
ment I  sent  you  a  telegram  which  with  an  extract  from  a  private 
letter  of  yours  I  gave  to  the  press.  I  would  gladly  recall  both  if  I 
could,  but  unable  to  do  that  I  write  you  this  letter  which  I  hope  you 
will  receive  in  the  same  friendly  spirit  in  which  I  send  it.  Come 
and  see  me  at  a  very  early  day.  No  one  will  welcome  you  more 
heartily  than  I. 

.  Yours  very  truly, 

(Signed)     R.  A.  Alger. 

I  thought  this  a  manly  letter,  and  paid  no  more  heed  to  the 
incident;  and  when  I  was  President,  and  Cicneral  Alger  was 
Senator  from  Michigan,  he  was  my  stanch  friend  and  on  most 
matters  my  supporter. 

APPENDIX   B 

THE    SAX    JUAN    FIGHT 

The  San  Juan  fight  took  its  name  from  the  San  Juan  Hill  or  hills 
—  I  do  not  know  whether  the  name  properly  belonged  to  a  line  of 
hills  or  to  only  one  hill. 

To  compare  small  things  with  large  things,  this  was  precisely  as 
the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  look  its  name  from  the  village  of  Gettys- 
burg, where  only  a  small  part  of  the  fighting  was  done;  and  the 
Battle  of  Waterloo  from  the  village  of  Waterloo,  where  none  of 
the  fighting  was  done.  When  it  became  the  political  interest 
of  certain  people  to  endeavor  to  minimize  my  part  in  the  Santiago 
fighting  (which  was  merely  like  that  of  various  other  squadron, 
battalion  and  regimental  commanders)  some  of  my  opponents 
laid  great  stress  on  the  alleged  fact  that  the  cavalry  did  not  charge 
up  San  Juan  Hill.  We  certainly  charged  some  hills;  but  I  did 
not  ask  their  names  before  charging  them.  To  say  that  the  Rough 
Riders  and  the  cavalry  division,  and  among  other  people  myself, 
were  not  in  the  San  Juan  fight  is  precisely  like  saying  that  the  men 
who  made  Pickett's  Charge,  or  the  men  who  fought  at  Little  Round 
Top  and  Culps  Hill,  were  not  at  Gettysburg;  or  that  Picton  and 
the  Scotch  Greys  and  the  French  and  English  guards  were  not  at 


'l^ 


280    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Waterloo.  The  present  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  in  the 
campaign  last  year  was  reported  in  the  press  as  repeatedly  saying 
that  I  was  not  in  the  San  Juan  fight.  The  documents  following 
herewith  have  been  printed  for  many  years,  and  were  accessible 
to  him  had  he  cared  to  know  or  to  tell  the  truth. 

These  documents  speak  for  themselves.  The  first  is  the  official 
report  issued  by  the  War  Department.  From  this  it  will  be  seen 
that  there  were  in  the  Santiago  fighting  thirty  infantry  and  cav- 
alry regiments  represented.  Six  of  these  were  volunteer,  of  which 
one  was  the  Rough  Riders.  The  other  twenty-four  were  regular 
regiments.  The  percentage  of  loss  of  our  regiment  was  about 
seven  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  other  five  volunteer  regiments. 
Of  the  twenty-four  regular  regiments,  twenty-two  suffered  a  smaller 
percentage  of  loss  than  we  suffered.  Two,  the  Sixth  United  States 
Infantry  and  the  Thirteenth  United  States  Infantry,  suffered  a 
slightly  greater  percentage  of  loss  —  twenty-six  per  cent  and 
twenty-three  per  cent  as  against  twenty-two  per  cent. 

(Congressional    Record,    ssth    Congress,    Third    Session, 
Volume  32,  Part  II,  Page  1250) 


NOMINATIONS   BY  THE   PRESIDENT 

To  be  Colonel  by  Brevet 

Lieutenant-Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt,  First  Volunteer  Cav- 
alry, for  gallantry  in  battle.  La  Guasima,  Cuba,  June  24,  1898. 

To  be  Brigadier-General  by  Brevet 

Lieutenant-Colonel  T'leodore  Roosevelt,  First  Volunteer  Cav- 
alry, for  gallantry  in  bat;I°,  Santiago  de  Cuba,  July  I,  1898. 
(Nominated  for  brevet  colonel,  to  rank  from  June  24,  1898.) 

Fort  San  Juan,  Cuba, 
July  17,  1898. 

The  Adjutant-General  LTnited  States  Army. 
Washington,  D.  C. 

(Through  military  channels) 

Sir  I  have  the  honor  to  invite  attention  to  the  following  list  of 
officer  and  enlisted  men  who  specially  distinguished  themselves 
in  the  action  at  Las  Guasimas,  Cuba,  June  24,  1898. 


I     i 


»  JULY   17.   'M- 


Total 


KUWd 


Muunilol 


prrscnt  (or 

duty  tiiuiiHwd 

June  (o. 


t 

,x 
5 


if: 


Maj  den.  W  R  Sh 
Sinnal  C'on"  ■ 
H.«pital  corps 


^  I 


Si 
-■7  5 


CASIAI.TIES  IN-  THE  jTH  CORPS  tX  THi;  OPERATIONS 


Lit*  ltit.f\ma». 
June  ;4 

KiMr<I        Witumtt-.l 


CommuiH. 


i! 
■J 
2 

■a 

u 


H  (  .inry.  July  i 
KIIIihI        U.iumlxl 

Si    i  I 


><'tn  Ju.in.  July 


..n.l  .t.,lT 


Ma)  <,rn    »\    N    shall, r  hrjiliiuartir. 
''Wiwl  r«ri» 
ll'npltal  torjKi  , 
•  '  inil  F..  Kngmrrr  Bdlulkin 
Sniiml  r    S    (  iv.ilry 
FiM  r>l.i.i,.n    Hriit    (irn   J    h     K.nl 
Kr.l  Hrii(;i.i,.  Hn«  (irn   H   S  lla»kin» 
Mxic.nth  (•   s   lri(.inlry 
^llth  L'    S    Infjnirv.    ., 
^tvcnty  fir^t  \,-«  \  „,k  Ir.lanlry 
Srcon.)  Br«...lr    C.,!   f:   p   IV,,rM,„   ,tl,  |„l  ,„lr^ 
Srrnnd  I'    ■>    Inf.inlry 
Trnlh  T   s    Infantry 
Twrnlv  (irsi  f   s    Infantry 
ThirJ  Hruta.lc,  Col   t     A    H  iki.ff   .■..,!  Infanlry 
Ninth  l   ^   Infant   . 
Thirlpenth  I'    s    li.lmtry 
Twrnlv  (,,urth  I'    s    Infantry 
V.ond  t)ivHi.,n.  HriK   l,>n   II    \i    |.a«t<.n 
fir^l  Brittle,  Hri,;   <,rn    W    I.u,||„„ 
Eia'ilh  l   s    Inl.nlry 
Twrnty  ^.■vonl|  l    >   Infantry 
SKim.l  .Ma»ijchus«lt.  Infantry 
•■•-.•ond  lirwa.le,  C..I   Kvan  .\l,!r,,  „t  Infantry 
hirvt  (.•   ■,   Infantry 
fimrth  I'    -   Infantry 
Toenty.fifth  I     s   Inijiitry 
Thir.l  llr«a.lc    hr«   (n„    A    K    ChaHw 
>eyenth  I'    s    Iiif.,nlr>     , 
Tutlflh  I-    s    lnl.,ntry         .    , 
v-vrntei-nth  l'    s    Infantry 
In.lip-n.ti.nt   llrit-ilr.  HriK    l„.n    J    f    H.its 

Thinl  C   s    Infantry       

Tuentitth  V   >    Infantry... 
Cavalry  livisicin.  M  ij    (i..n   J    H  ht-i-li-r 
First  BriKd.lc,  Hrin  tiin   s.  s   Sumner 

Third  U.  S.  Caviilry. . . .  i 

i-- 

Sirth  U.  S.  Cavair}' | 

Ninth  V  S.  Cavalo- ! 

S«on.l  Brigade.  Brig  Gen   S.  B.  M.  Young....!,. 

First  U.  S.  Cavalry i 

Tenth  U.S.  Cavalry 

First  U.  S  Volunli:er  Cavalry , 

Artillery  Battalion.  Maj  J.  W.  DUIenback 

E.  1st  Artillery 

K.  tst  Artillery 

A.  ad  Artillery 

F,  ad  Artillery 

C.  4th  Artillery 

H.  4th  Artillery 

Brig  Gen.  H   M.  DuUield's  Brigade. . 
Ninth  Massachusett*  Infantry. 
Thirty-third  Michigan  Infantry  . 
Thirty-fourth  Michigan  Infantry. 
Total 


Adjutant  Gcnz>ai.'s  OrncE.  April  ij,  .goo. 


KilM 

Wci 

:  i 

X 

7 

i 

IE 

i 

!    i 


2 
3 


-timaled  —  no  return. 


July ,-,.  I     Anwixt  Suiiuo, 
July  i»-ii. 


RATinXS  AGAINsr  SAXTIVCO.  Jl^E 

n  Juin   July  i   j,         A«u 


1 

.2 

3 


"  TO  Jl  I.V    ,;,    ,8qa. 


7'. 


6 

-J'' 

1  4 

si 

2 

!'• 

47 

9 

6, 

4 

6q 

I 


Pr«*n!  for 

July  r.|ui|>pe<l 

June  JO. 


Jj| 


I     ! 


■00 

lor 


' 

'  - 

17 

I 

7 

J 

« 

a 

» 

« 

II 

J 

... 

6 

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I'D 

117 


31 

Jl 


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log 
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6 

6 

U 

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11 

4»l 

47 

eii 

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« 

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fill 

>.<  1 

4.1» 

,6, 

441 

J  1. 

■•  i 


"    I        441 
'4     I         441 

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H.  C.  COR  BIN. 

AiltMlan:  Cneral,  U.S.A. 


APPENDIX 


281 


These  officer*  and  men  have  been  recommended  for  favorable 
consideration  by  their  immediate  commanding  officers  in  their 
respective  reports,  and  I  would  respectfully  urge  that  favorable 
action  be  taken. 

OFFICERS 


In  First  I'nitcd  States  Xoluntecr  Cavalry  —  Colonel  Leonard 
Wood,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Roosevelt. 


Respectfully, 

Joseph  Wheei.er, 
Major-Gfneral  United  States  f'olunteers,  Commanding. 

Headquarters  Second  Cavalry  Brigade, 
Camp  near  Santiago  de  Cuba.  Cuba, 

June  29,  1H9S. 
The  Adjutant-General  Cavalry  DivisroN. 

Sir  :  By  direction  of  the  major-pencral  conimandinp  the  Cavalry 
Division,  I  have  the  honor  to  submit  the  following  report  of    ' 
engagement  of  a  part  of  this  brijrade  with  the  cnemv  at  Guasim 
Cuba,  on  June  24th,  accompanied  by  detailed  reports  from  ti.. 
regimental  and  other  commanders  engaged,  and  a  list  of  the  killed 
and  wounded : 


I  = 


I  cannot  speak  too  highly  of  the  efficient  manner  in  which 
Colonel  Wood  handled  his  regiment,  and  of  his  inaifniticcnt  be- 
havior on  the  field.  The  conduct  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Roosevelt, 
as  reported  to  me  by  my  two  aides,  deserves  my  highest  commenda- 
tion. Both  Colonel  Wood  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Roosevelt 
disdained  to  take  advantage  of  shelter  or  cover  from  the  enemy's 
fire  while  any  of  their  men  remained  exposed  to  it  —  an  error  of 
judgment,  but  happily  on  the  heroic  side. 

Very  respectfullv. 
n  .     ^.      ^  ,  S.  B.  M.  VOUNG, 

Brigadier  General  United  States  Volunteers,  Commanding. 


\i  I 


:!f: 


282    'HIKODORK    R(K)Si:\Ki;r  — AN    ALTOBIOGRAPHV 

IlEADQt'ARTKRS    FlRST    DIVISION    SecOXD    ArMV    CoRPS 

Camp  NiACKENZiE,  (ia., 
December  30,  189H. 

ADIUTANT-nKNKRAI.. 
W'ashinvMon,  I).  C. 

Sir  :  I  have  tin-  honor  to  recommend  Hoii.  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
late  Colonel  First  Inited  States  N'olunteer  Cavalry,  for  a  medal  of 
honor,  as  a  reward  for  conspicuous  gallantry  at  the  battle  of  San 
Jua.i,  Cub-j,  on  July  1,  |S<>H. 

Colonel  Rooscveit  by  his  example  and  fearlessness  inspired  his 
men,  and  both  at  Kettle  Mill  and  the  ridjte  known  as  San  Juan  he 
led  his  command  in  person.  I  was  an  eye-witness  of  Colonel 
Roosevelt's  action. 

As  Colonel  Roosevelt  has  left  the  service,  a  Brevet  Commission 
is  of  no  particular  value  in  his  case. 

Very  respectfully, 

Samuel  S.  Sumner, 
Major-General  United  States  Folunteers. 


West  Point,  N.  Y., 
December  17,  1S9S. 

My  dear  Colonel:  I  saw  you  lead  the  line  up  the  first  hill  — 
you  were  certainly  the  first  officer  to  reach  the  ton  —  and  throuffh 
yoisr  efforts,  and  your  personally  jumping  to  the  front,  a  line  more 
or  les-i  thin,  hut  strong'  enough  to  take  it,  was  led  by  you  to  the  San 
Juan  or  tir-t  hill.  In  this  your  life  was  placed  in  extreme  jeopardy, 
as  you  may  recall,  and  as  it  proved  by  the  number  of  dead  left  in 
that  viciiuiy  Captain  Stevens,  then  of  the  Ninth  Cavalry,  now 
of  the  Second  Ca\  ;)Iry,  was  with  >  ou,  and  I  am  sure  he  recalls  your 
gallant  conduct,  .\ftc-r  the  line  started  on  the  advance  from  the 
first  hill,  I  did  not  see  you  until  our  line  was  halted,  under  a  most 
galling  fire,  at  the  extreme  front,  where  you  afterwards  entrenched. 
I  spoke  to  you  there  and  gave  instructions  from  General  Sumner 
that  the  position  was  to  be  held  and  that  there  would  be  no  further 
advance  till  further  orders,  ^'ou  were  the  senior  officer  there, 
took  charge  of  thi-  line,  scokli-d  me  for  having  my  horse  so  high 
upon  the  ridge;  at  the  same  time  you  were  exposing  yourself 
most  conspicuously,  while  adjusting  the  line,  for  the  example  was 
necessary,  as  was  proved  when  several  colored  soldiers  —  about 
eight  or  ten.  Twenty-fourth  Infantry,  I  think  —  started  at  a  run 
to  the  rear  to  assist  a  wounded  colored  soldier,  and  you  drew  your 


APPKNDIX 


a83 


revolver  and  put  a  short  and  effective  stop  to  such  apparent 
stampede  —  it  quieted  them.  That  position  was  hot,  and  now  I 
marvel  at  your  escaping  there.  ... 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

KoBKRT    I-.    HOWZE. 


West  Point,  N.  Y., 
December  17,  1 898. 

I  hereby  certify  that  on  July  I,  l8<>H,  Colonel  (then  Lieutenant- 
Colonel)  Theodore  R(K)sevelt,  First  Volunteer  Cavalry,  distin- 
ffuished  himself  through  the  action,  and  on  two  occasions  during 
the  battle  when  I  was  an  eye-witness,  his  conduct  was  most  con- 
spicuous and  clearly  distinguished  above  other  men,  as  follows  : 

1.  At  the  base  of  San  Juan,  or  first  hill,  there  was  a  strong  wire 
fence,  or  entanglement,  at  which  the  line  hesitated  under  a  gallinir 
fire,  and  where  the  losses  were  severe.  Colonel  Roosevelt  jumped 
through  the  fence  and  by  his  enthusiasm,  his  example  and  courage 
succeeded  in  leading  to  the  crest  of  the  hill  a  line  sufficiently  strong 
to  capture  it.  In  this  •  " -:?c  the  Cavalry  Brigade  suffered  its 
greatest  loss,  and  the  Colo  I's  life  was  placed  in  extreme  jeopardy, 
owing  to  the  conspicuous  ()osition  he  took  in  leading  the  line,  and 
being  the  first  to  reach  the  crest  of  tiiat  hill,  while  -.nder  heavy  fire 
of  the  enemy  at  close  range. 

2.  At  the  extreme  advanced  position  ficcupicd  by  our  lines, 
Colonel  Roosevelt  found  himself  the  senior,  and  under  his  instruc- 
tions from  C.eneral  Sumner  to  hold  that  position,  lie  displayed 
the  greatest  bravery  and  placed  his  life  in  extreme  jeopardy  by 
unavoidable  exposure  to  severe  fire  while  adjusting  and  strengthen- 
ing the  line,  placing  the  men  in  positions  which  afforded  best  pro- 
tection, etc.,  etc  His  conduct  and  example  steadied  the  men,  and 
on  one  occasion  by  severe  but  unnecessary  measures  prevented  a 
small  detachment  from  stampeding  to  the  rear,  lie  displayed  the 
most  conspicuous  gallantry,  courage  and  coolness,  in  performing 
extraordinarily  hazardous  duty. 

ROHKRT    ]..    HoWZE, 

Captain  A.  A.  G.,  V.  S.  f. 
(First  Lieutenant  Sixth  United  States  Cavalry) 

To  THE  Adjutant-General  United  States  Army, 
Washington,  D.  C. 


,   f 


2S4    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AN    AITOBIOGRAPHV 


Headquarters  Unmted  States  Military  Academy, 

West  Point,  N.  Y., 

April  5,  1899. 
Lieutenant-Colonel  W.  H.  Carter, 

Assistant  Adjutant-General  United  States  Army, 
W'ashinjrton,  D.  C. 

Sir:  In  compliance  with  the  request,  contained  in  your  letter 
of  April  30th,  of  the  Board  convened  to  consider  the  awarding  of 
brevets,  medals  of  honor,  etc.,  for  the  Santiago  Campaign,  that  I 
state  any  facts,  within  my  knowledge  as  Adjutant-General  of  the 
Brigade  in  which  Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt  served,  to  aid  the 
Board  in  determining,  in  connection  with  Colonel  Roosevelt's 
application  for  a  medal  of  honor,  whether  his  conduct  at  Santiago 
was  such  as  to  distinguish  him  above  others,  I  have  the  honor  to 
submit  the  following: 

My  duties  on  July  i,  1898,  brought  me  in  constant  observation 
of  and  contact  witii  Colonel  Roosevelt  from  early  morning  until 
shortly  before  the  climax  of  the  assault  of  the  Cavalry  Division 
on  the  San  Juan  Hill  —  the  so-called  Kettle  Hill.  During  this 
time,  while  under  the  enemy's  artillery  lire  at  El  Poso,  and  while 
on  the  march  from  El  Poso  by  the  San  Juan  ford  to  the  point  from 
which  his  regiment  moved  to  the  assault  — ■  about  two  miles,  the 
greater  part  under  fire  —  Colonel  Roosevelt  was  conspicuous  above 
any  others  I  observed  in  his  regiment  in  the  zealous  performance 
of  duty,  in  total  disregard  of  his  personal  danger  and  in  his  eager- 
ness to  meet  the  enemy.  At  El  Poso,  when  the  enemy  opened 
on  that  place  with  artillery  fire,  a  shrapnel  bullet  grazed  and 
oruised  one  of  Colonel  Roosevelt's  wrists.  The  incident  did  not 
lessen  his  hazardous  exposure,  but  he  continued  so  exposed  until 
he  had  placed  his  command  under  cover.  In  moving  to  the  assault 
of  San  Juan  Hill,  Colonel  Roosevelt  was  most  conspicuously  brave, 
gallant  and  indifferent  to  his  own  safety.  He,  in  the  open,  led  his 
regiment ;  no  officer  could  have  set  a  more  striking  example  to  his 
men  or  displayed  greater  intrepidity. 

Very  respectfully. 

Your  obedient  servant, 
A.  L.  Mills, 

Colonel  United  States  Army,  Superintendent. 


APPENDIX 


28s 


Headquarters  Department  ok  Santiag"  de  Cuba, 

Santiago  de  Cuba, 
December  30,  1898. 

To  THE  Adjutant-General,  United  States  Army,- 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  make  the  following  statement  relative 
to  the  conduct  of  Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt,  late  First  United 
States  Volunteer  Cavalrv,  during  the  assault  upon  San  Juan  Hill, 
July  I,  1898. 

I  have  already  recommended  this  officer  for  a  medal  of  honor, 
which  I  understand  has  been  denied  him,  upon  the  ground  that 
my  previous  letter  was  too  indefinite.  I  based  my  recommenda- 
tion upon  the  fact  that  Colonel  Roosevelt,  accompanied  only  by 
four  or  five  men,  led  a  very  desperate  and  extremely  gallant  charge 
on  San  Juan  Hill,  thereby  setting  a  splendid  example  to  the  troops 
and  encouraging  them  to  pass  over  the  open  country  intervening 
between  their  position  and  the  trenches  of  the  enemy.  In  leading 
this  charge,  he  started  off  first,  as  he  supposed,  with  quite  a  fol- 
lowing of  men,  but  soon  discovered  that  he  was  alone.  He  then 
returned  and  gathered  up  a  few  men  and  led  them  to  the  charge, 
as  above  stated.  The  charge  in  itself  was  an  extremely  gallant 
one,  and  the  example  set  a  most  inspiring  one  to  the  troops  in  that 
part  of  the  line,  and  while  it  is  perfectly  true  that  everybody  finally 
went  up  the  hill  in  good  style,  yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
magnificent  example  set  b\  Colonel  Roosevelt  had  a  very  encourag- 
ing effect  and  had  great  weight  in  bringing  up  the  troops  behind 
him.  During  the  assault.  Colonel  Roosevelt  was  the  first  to 
reach  the  trenches  in  his  part  of  the  line  and  killed  one  of  the  enemy 
with  his  own  hand. 

I  earnestly  recommend  that  the  medal  be  conferred  upon 
Colonel  Roosevelt,  for  I  believe  that  he  in  every  way  deserves  it, 
and  that  his  services  on  the  day  in  question  were  of  great  value  and 
of  a  most  distinguished  character. 

\'ery  respectfully, 

Leonard  Wood, 

Major-Generah  V nitfd  States  I'olunteers. 
Commanding  Department  of  Santiago  de  Cuba. 


1  h: 
■■iA 


■•■{■  f 


286    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

HuNTsviLLE,  Ala., 
January  4,  1899. 

The  Adjutant-Gen?:ral,  United  States  Army, 
Washington,  D.  C. 
Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  recommend  that  a  "Congressional 
Medal  of  Ho.ior"  be  given  to  Theodore  Roosevelt  (late  Colonel 
First  Volunteer  Cavalry),  for  distinguished  conduct  and  con- 
spicuous bravcrv  in  command  of  his  regiment  in  the  charge  on 
San  Juan  Hill,  Cuba,  July  i,  1898. 

In  compliance  with  G.  O.  135,  A.  G.  O.  1898,  I  enclose  my 
certificate  showing  my  personal  knowledge  of  Colonel  Roosevelt's 
conduct.  Very  respectfully, 

C.  J.  Stevens, 
Captain  Second  Cavalry. 

I  hereby  certify  that  on  July  i,  1898,  at  the  battle  of  San  Juan, 
Cuba,  I  witnessed  Colonel  (then  Lieutenant-Colonel)  Roosevelt, 
First  X'oluntcer  Cavalry,  United  States  of  America,  mounted, 
leading  his  regiment  in  the  charge  on  San  Juan.  By  his  gallantry 
and  strong  personality  he  contributed  most  materially  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  charge  of  the  Cavalry  Division  up  San  Juan  Hill. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  was  among  the  first  to  reach  the  crest  of  the 
hill,  and  his  dashing  example,  his  absolute  fearlessness  and  gallant 
leading  rendered  his  conduct  conspicuous  and  clearly  distinguished 
above  other  men. 

C.  J.  Stevens, 
Captain  Second  Cavalry. 
(Late  First  Lieutenant  Ninth  Cavalry.) 

Young's  Island,  S.  C, 

December  28,  1898. 

To  the  Adjutant-General,  United  STATrs  Army. 
Washington,  D.  C. 
Sir:  Believing  that  information  relating  to  superior  conduct 
on  the  part  of  any  of  the  higher  officers  who  participated  in  the 
Spanish-.\mcrican  War  (and  which  information  may  not  have  been 
given)  would  be  appreciated  by  the  Department  over  which  you 
preside,  I  have  the  honor  to  call  your  attention  to  the  part  borne 
by  Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt,  of  the  late  First  United  Slates 
\'olunteer  Cavalry,  in  the  battle  of  July  1st  last.  I  do  this  not 
only  because  I  think  you  ought  to  know,  but  because  his  regi- 


APPENDIX 


287 


ment  as  a  whole  were  very  proud  of  his  splendid  actions  that  day 
and  believe  they  call  for  that  most  coveted  distinction  of  the 
American  officer,  the  Medal  of  Honor.  Held  in  support,  he 
brought  his  regiment,  at  exactly  the  right  time,  not  only  up  to  the 
line  of  regulars,  but  v.vnt  through  them  and  headed,  on  horseback, 
the  charge  on  Kettle  Hill;  this  being  done  on  his  own  initiative, 
the  regulars  as  well  as  his  own  men  following.  He  then  headed  the 
charge  on  the  next  hill,  both  regulars  and  the  First  United  States 
Volunteer  Cavalry  following.  He  was  so  near  the  intrenchments 
on  the  second  hill,  that  he  shot  and  killed  with  a  revolver  one  of  the 
enemy  before  they  broke  completely.  He  then  led  the  cavaliv 
on  the  chain  of  hills  overlooking  Santiago,  where  he  remained  in 
charge  of  all  the  cavalry  that  was  at  the  extreme  front  for  the  rest 
of  that  day  and  night.  His  unhesitating  gallantry  in  taking  the 
initiative  -  .ainst  intrenchments  lined  by  men  armed  with  rapid 
fire  guns  i.^.-tainly  won  him  the  highest  consideration  and  admira- 
tion of  all  who  witnessed  his  conduct  throughout  that  day. 

What  I  here  write  I  can  bear  witness  to  from  personally  having 
seen.  Very  respectfully, 

M.  J.  Jenkins, 
Major  Late  First  United  States  Cavalry. 


Prescott,  a.  T., 
December  25,  1898. 

I  was  Colonel  Roosevelt's  orderly  at  the  battle  of  San  Juan  Hill, 
and  from  that  time  on  until  our  return  to  Montauk  Point.  I  was 
with  him  all  through  the  fighting,  and  believe  I  was  the  only  man 
who  was  always  with  him,  though  during  part  of  the  time  Lieuten- 
ants Ferguson  and  Greenwald  were  also  close  to  him.  He  led  our 
regiment  forward  on  horseback  until  he  came  to  the  men  of  the 
Ninth  Cavalry  lying  down.  He  led  us  through  the:-"  "nd  thev 
got  up  and  joined  us.  He  gave  the  order  to  charge  on  Kettle  HilJ, 
and  led  us  on  horseback  up  the  hill,  both  Rough  Riders  and  the 
Ninth  Cavalry.  He  was  the  first  on  the  hill,  I  being  very  nearly 
alongside  of  him.  Some  Spanish  riflemen  were  coming  out  of  the 
intrenchments  and  he  killed  one  with  his  revolver.  He  took  the 
men  on  to  the  crest  of  the  hill  and  bade  them  begin  firing  on  the 
blockhouse  on  the  hill  to  our  left,  the  one  the  infantry  were  attack- 
ing. When  we  took  it,  he  gave  the  order  to  charge,  and  led  the 
troops  on  Kettle  Hill  forward  against  the  blockhouse  on  our  front. 
He  then  had  charge  of  all  the  cavalry  on  the  hills   overlooking 


Hi 


288    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Santiago,  where  we  afterwards  dug  our  trenches.  He  had  com- 
mand that  afternoon  and  night,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  time  com- 
manded our  regiment  at  this  point. 

Vours  very  truly, 

H.    P.    B.\RDSHAR. 


Cambrm/ue,  Md., 
March  27,  1902. 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  President  of  the  United  States. 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Dear  Sir  :  At  vour  request,  I  send  you  the  following  extracts 
from  my  diarv,  and  from  notes  taken  on  the  day  of  the  assault  on 
San  Juan,  l'  kept  in  mv  pocket  a  small  pad  on  which  mcidents 
were  noted  dailv  from  the  landing  until  the  surrender.  On  the 
day  of  the  fight  notes  were  taken  just  before  Grimes  fired  his  first 
gull,  just  after  the  third  reply  from  the  enemy  —  when  we  were 
massed  in  the  road  about  seventy  paces  from  Grimes'  guns,  and 
when  I  was  beginning  to  get  scared  and  to  think  I  would  be  killed 
—  at  the  halt  just  before  vou  advanced,  and  under  the  shelter  of 
the  hills  in  the  evening.  'Each  time  that  notes  were  taken,  the 
page  was  put  in  an  envelope  addressed  to  my  wife.  At  the  first 
chance  thev  were  mailed  to  her,  and  on  my  arrival  in  the  United 
States  the  storv  of  the  fight,  taken  from  these  notes,  was  entered  in 
the  diarv  1  keep  in  a  book.  I  make  this  lengthy  explanation  that 
you  may  see  that  everything  pat  down  was  fresh  in  my  memory. 

I  quote  from  mv  diary:  "The  tension  on  the  men  was  great. 
Suddenlv  a  line  of  men  appeared  coming  from  our  right.  They 
were  advancing  through  the  long  grass,  deployed  as  skirmishers 
and  were  under  fire.  At  their  head,  or  rather  in  front  of  them  and 
leading  then>,  rode  Colonel  Roosevelt.  He  was  very  conspicuous, 
mounted  as  ho  was.  The  men  were  the  'Rough  Riders,'  so-called. 
I  heard  some  one  calling  to  them  not  to  fire  into  us,  and  seeing 
Colonel  Carrol,  reported  to  him,  and  was  told  to  go  out  and  meet 
them,  and  caution  them  as  to  our  position,  we  being  between  them 
and  the  enemv.  I  did  so,  speaking  to  Colonel  Roosevelt.  I  also 
told  him  we  were  under  orders  not  to  advance,  and  asked  him  if  he 
had  received  any  orders.  He  replied  that  he  was  going  to  charge 
the  Spanish  trenches.  I  told  this  to  Colonel  Carrol,  and  to 
Captain  Dimmick,  our  squadron  commander.  A  few  moments 
after  the  word  passed  down  that  our  left  (Captain  Taylor)  was 
about  to  charge.     Captain  McBlain  called   out,  'we  must  go  in 


APPENDIX 


289 


with  those  troops  ;  we  must  support  Taylor.'     I  called  this  to  Cap- 
tain Dimmick,  and  he  gave  the  order  to  assault." 

"The  cheer  was  taken  up  and  taken  up  again,  on  the  left,  and  in 
the  distance  it  rolled  on  and  on.  And  so  we  started.  Colonel 
Roosevelt,  of  the  Rough  Riders,  started  the  whole  movement  on 
the  left,  which  was  the  first  advance  of  the  assault." 

The  following  is  taken  from  my  noucs  and  was  hastily  jotted 
down  on  the  field:  "The  Rough  Riders  came  in  line  —  Colonel 
Roosevelt  said  he  would  assault  —  Taylor  joined  them  with  his 
troop  —  McBlain  called  to  Dimmick,  'let  us  go,  we  must  go  to 
support  them.'  Dimmick  said  all  right  —  and  so,  with  no  orders, 
we  went  in." 

I  find  many  of  my  notes  are  illegible  from  perspiration.  My 
authority  for  saying  Taylor  went  in  with  you.  "joined  with  his 
troop"  was  the  word  passed  to  me  and  repeated  to  Captain  Dim- 
mick that  Taylor  was  about  to  charge  with  you.  I  could  not  see 
his  troop.  I  have  not  put  it  in  my  diary,  but  in  another  place 
I  have  noted  that  Colonel  Carrol,  who  was  acting  as  brigade  com- 
mander, told  me  to  ask  you  if  you  had  any  orders. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

\  ery  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 
Menry  Anson  Barber, 
Captain  T:venly-Eighth  Infantry, 

{formerly  of  Ninth  Cavalry). 


Headquarters  Pacific  Division, 

San  Francisco,  Cal., 

May  II,  1905. 

Dear  Mr.  President:  As  some  discussion  has  arisen  in  the 
public  prints  regarding  the  battle  of  San  Juan,  Cuba,  July  i,  1S98, 
and  your  personal  movements  during  that  day  have  been  the  sub- 
ject of  comment,  it  may  not  be  amiss  in  me  to  state  some  facts 
coming  under  my  personal  observation  as  Commanding  (jeneral 
of  the  Cavalry  Division,  of  which  your  regiment  formed  a  part. 
It  will,  perhaps,  be  advisable  to  show  first  how  I  came  to  be  in 
command,  in  order  that  my  statement  may  have  due  weight  as  an 
authoritative  statement  of  facts :  I  was  p'aced  in  command 
of  the  Cavalry  Division  on  the  afternoon  of  June  30th  by  (General 
Shafter;  the  a'^^ignment  was  made  owing  to  the  severe  illness  of 
General  Wheeler,  who  was  the  permanent  commander  of  said 
Division.  Brigadier  General  Young,  who  commanded  the  Second 
u 


'4,- 


290    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Cavalry  Brigade,  of  which  vour  regiment  —  the  First  Volunteer 
Cavalrv  —  formed  a  part,  was  also  very  ill,  and  I  found  it  neces- 
sary to  relieve  him  from  command  and  place  Colonel  Wood,  of  the 
Rough  Riders,  in  ccmimand  c.f  the  Brigade;  this  change  placed 
vou  in  command  of  your  regiment. 

The  Division  moved  from  its  camp  on  the  evening  of  Jun-;  30th, 
and  bivouacked  at  and  about  El  Poso.     I  saw  you  personally  in 
the  vicinitv  of  El  Poso,  about  S  a.m.,  July  ist.     I  saw  you  again 
on  the  road  leading  from  El  Poso  to  the  San  Juan  River ;  you  were 
at  the  head  of  vour  regiment,  which  was  leading  the  Second  Bri- 
gade, and  immediately  behind  the  rear  regiment  of  the  First  Bri- 
gade.    Mv  orders  were  to  turn  to  the  right  at  San  Juan  River  and 
take  up  a  line  along  that  stream  and  try  and  connect  with  General 
Lawton,  who  was  to  engage  the  enemy  at  El  Caney.     On  reaching 
the  river  we  came  under  the  fire  of  the  Spanish  forces  posted  on 
San  Juan  Ridge  and  Kettle  Hill.     The  First  Brigade  was  faced  to 
the  front  in  line  as  soon  as  it  had  cleared  the  road,  and  the  Second 
Brigaue  was  ordered  to  pass  in  rear  of  the  first  and  face  'o  the  front 
when  clear  of  the  First  Brigade.     This  movement  was  very  diffi- 
cult, owing  to  the  heavy  undergrowth,  and  the  regiments  became 
more  or  less  tangled  up,'but  eventually  the  formation  was  accom- 
plished, and  the  Division  stood  in  an  irregular  line  along  the  San 
Juan  River,  the  Second  Brigade  on  the  right.     We  were  subjected 
to  a  heavv  fire  from  the  forces  on  San  Juan  Ridge  and  Kettle  Hll ; 
our  position  was  untenable,  and  it  became  necessary  to  assault  the 
enemv  or  fall  back.     Kettle  Hill  was  immediately  in  front  of  the 
Cavalry,  and  it  was  determined  to  assault  that  hill.     The  First 
Brigade  was  ordered  forward,  and  the  Second  Brigade  was  ordered 
to  support  the  attack;    personally,  I  accompanied  a  portion  of  the 
Tenth  Cavalry,  Second  Brigade,  and  the  Rough  Riders  were  to  the 
right.     'I'his  brought  vour  regiment  to  the  right  of  the  house  which 
was  at  the  summit  of  the  hill.     Shortly  after  I  reached  the  crest 
of  the  hill  vou  came  to  me,  accompanied,  I  think,  by  Captain  C.  J. 
Stevens,  of  the  Ninth  Cavalry.     We  were  then  in  a  position  to  see 
the  line  of  intrenchments  along  San  Juan  Ridge,  and  could  see 
Kent's  Infantrv  Division  engaged  on  our  left,  and  Hawkins    as- 
sault against  Fort  San   Juan.     Vou  asked  me  for  permission  to 
move  forward  and  assauft  San  Juan  Ridge.     I  gave  you  the  order 
in  person   to  move  forward,  and   1   saw  you  move  forward   and 
assault  San   luan  Ridge  with  your  regiment  and  portions  of  the 
First  and  'I'enth  Cavalry  belonging  to  your  Brigade.     I  held  a 
portion  of  the  Second   Brigade  as  a  reserve  on   Kettle  Hill,  not 
knowing  what  force  the  enemy  might  have  in  reserve  behind  the 


APPKXDIX 


2gl 


ridge.  The  First  Brigade  also  moved  forward  and  assaulted  the 
ridge  to  the  right  of  Fort  San  Juan.  There  was  a  small  lake  be- 
tween Kettle  Hill  and  San  Juan  Ridge,  and  in  moving  forward  your 
command  passed  to  the  right  of  this  lake.  'Phis  brought  you  oppo- 
site a  house  on  San  Juan  Ridge  —  not  Fort  San  Juan  proper,  but 
a  frame  house  surrounded  by  an  earthwork.  The  enemy  lost  a 
number  of  men  at  this  point,  whose  bodies  lay  in  the  trenches. 
Later  in  the  day  I  rode  along  the  line,  and,  as  I  recall  it,  a  portion 
of  the  Tenth  Cavalry  was  immediately  about  this  house,  and  your 
regiment  occupied  an  irregular  semi-circular  position  along  the 
ridge  and  immediately  to  the  right  of  the  house.  Vou  had  pickets 
out  to  your  front;  and  several  hundred  yards  to  your  front  the 
Spaniards  had  a  heavy  outpost  occupying  a  house,  with  rifle  pits 
surrounding  it.  Later  in  the  day,  and  during  the  following  day, 
the  various  regiments  forming  the  Division  were  rearranged  and 
brought  into  tactical  formation,  the  First  Brigade  on  the  left  and 
immediately  to  the  right  of  Fort  San  Juan,  and  the  Second  Brigade 
on  the  right  of  the  First. 

This  was  the  position  occupied  by  the  Cavalry  Division  until  the 
final  surrender  of  the  Spanish  forces,  on  July  17,  1898. 

In  conclusion  allow  me  to  say,  that  I  saw  you,  personally,  at 
about  8  A.M.,  at  Kl  Poso;  later,  on  the  road  to  San  Juan  River; 
later,  on  the  summit  of  Kettle  Hill,  immediately  after  its  capture 
by  the  Cavalry  Division.  I  saw  you  move  forward  with  your 
command  to  assault  San  Juan  Ridge,  and  I  saw  you  on  San  Juan 
Ridge,  where  we  visited  your  line  together,  and  you  explained  to 
me  the  disposition  of  your  command. 

I  am,  sir,  with  much  respect. 

Sour  obedient  servant, 

Samuel  S.  Sumner, 
Major-General  United  States  Army. 


ill 


i    I 


\\. 


Copyright  by  Arthur  Hewitt. 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  Governor  of  New  York  State. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE    NEW    YORK   GOVERNORSHIP 

IN  September,  1898,  the  First  Volunteer  Cavalry,  in 
company  with  most  of  tlie  rest  of  the  fifth  Army 
Corps,  was  disembarked  at  Montauk  Point.  Shortly 
after  it  was  disbanded,  and  a  few  days  later,  I  was 
nominated  for  Governor  of  New  York  by  the  Republican 
party  Timothy  L.  Woodruff  was  nominated  for  Lieutenant- 
Governor.  He  was  my  stanch  friend  throughout  the  term 
of  our  joint  service. 

The  previous  year,  the  machine  or  standpat  Republicans, 
who  were  under  the  domination  of  Senator  Piatt,  had  come 
to  a  complete  break  with  the  anti-machine  element  over  the 
New  York  mayoralty.  This  had  brought  the  Republican 
party  to  a  smash,  not  only  in  New  ^  ork  '^ity,  but  m  the 
State  where  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Chief  Judge 
of  the  Court  of  Appeals,  Alton  B.  Parker,  was  elected  by 
sixty  or  eighty  thousand  majority.  Mr.  Parker  was  an 
able  mau,  a  lieutenant  of  Mr.  Hill's,  standing  close  to  the 
conservative  Democrats  of  the  Wall  Street  type.  These 
conservative  Democrats  were  planning  how  to  wrest  the 
Democratic  party  from  the  control  of  Mr.  Bryan  They 
hailed  Tudge  Parker's  victory  as  a  godsend.  The  Judge  at 
once  loomed  up  as  a  Presidential  possibility,  and  was  care- 
fully groomed  for  the  position  by  the  New  \  ork  Democratic 
machine,  and  its  financial  allies  in  the  New  \  ork  business 

world.  ,  ^1 

The  Republicans  realized  that  the  chances  were  very  mucn 
against  them.  Accordingly  the  leaders  were  in  a  chastened 
mood  and  readv  to  nominate  any  candidate  with  whom 
they  thought  there  was  a  chance  of  winning.  1  was  the 
only    possibility,    and,   accordingly,  under    pressure    from 

293 


lis 

m 
i  i 

Hi 

'-a 


294    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


■I.L.. 


certain  of  the  leaders  who  recognized  this  fact,  and  who 
responded  to  popular  pressure,  Senator  Piatt  picked  mc 
for  the  iioniination.  He  was  entirely  frank  in  the  matter. 
He  made  no  pretense  that  he  liked  me  personally;  but  he 
deferred  to  the  judgment  of  those  who  insisted  that  I  was 
the  only  man  who  could  be  elected,  and  that  therefore  I  had 
to  be  nominated. 

Foremost  among  the  leaders  who  pressed  me  on  Mr. 
l*latt  (who  "pestered"  him  about  mc,  to  use  his  own  words) 
were  Mr.  Quigg,  Mr.  Odell  —  then  State  Chairman  of  the 
Republican  organization,  and  afterwards  Governor  —  and 
Mr.  Hazel,  now  United  States  Judge.  Judge  Hazel  did  not 
know  me  personally,  but  felt  that  the  sentiment  in  his  city, 
Buffalo,  demanded  my  nomination,  and  that  the  then 
Republican  Cjovernor,  Mr.  Black,  could  not  be  reelected. 
Mr.  Odell,  who  hardly  knew  me  personally,  felt  the  same 
way  about  Mr.  Black's  chances,  and,  as  he  had  just  taken 
the  State  Chairmanship,  he  was  very  anxious  to  win  a 
victory.  Mr.  Quigg  knew  me  quite  well  personally;  he 
had  been  in  touch  with  me  for  years,  while  he  was  a  reporter 
on  the  Tributu;  and  also  when  he  edited  a  paper  in 
-Montana ;  he  had  been  on  good  terms  with  me  while  he  was 
in  Congress  and  I  was  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  meeting 
me  often  in  company  with  my  especial  cronies  in  Congress 
—  men  like  Lodge,  Speaker  Tom  Reed,  Greenhalge,  Butter- 
worth,  and  Dolliver  —  and  he  had  urged  my  appointment  as 
Police  Commissioner  on  Mayor  Strong. 

It  was  Mr.  Quigg  who  called  on  me  at  Montauk  Point  to 
sound  me  about  the  Governorship;  Mr.  Piatt  being  by  no 
means  enthusiastic  over  Mr.  Quigg's  mission,  largely  be- 
cause he  disapproved  of  the  Spanish  War  and  of  my  part 
in  bringing  it  about.  Mr.  Quigg  saw  me  in  my  tent,  in 
which  he  spent  a  couple  of  hours  with  me,  my  brother-in-law, 
Douglas  Robinson,  being  also  present.  Quigg  spoke  very 
frankly  to  me,  stating  that  he  earnestly  desired  to  see  me 
nominated  and  believed  that  the  great  body  of  Republican 
voters  in  the  State  so  desired,  but  that  the  organization  and 
the  State  Convention  would  finally  do  what  Senator  Piatt 
desired.     He  said  that  county  leaders  were  already  coming  to 


l: 


THE  NKVV  YORK  C.OV  ERNORSHIP 


295 


Senator  Piatt,  hinting  at  a  close  election,  expressing  doubt 
of  Governor  Black's  availability  for  reelection,  and  asking 
why  it  would  not  be  a  good  thing  to  nominate  me  ;  that  now 
that  I  had  returned  to  the  United  States  this  would  go  on 
n-ore  and  more  all  the  time,  and  that  he  (Quigg)  did  not  wish 
that  these  men  should  be  discouraged  and  be  sent  back  to 
their  localities  to  suppress  a  rising  sentiment  in  my  favor. 
For  this  reason  he  said  that  he  wanted  from  me  a  plain 
statement  as  to  whether  or  not   I  wanted  the  nomination, 
and  as  to  what  would  be  my  attitude  toward  the  organiza- 
tion in  the  event  of  my  nomination  and  election,  whether 
or  not  I  would  "make  war"  on  Mr.  Piatt  and  his  friends,  or 
whether  I  would  confer  with  them  and  with  the  organiza- 
tion leaders  generally,  and  give  fair  consideration  to  their 
point  of  view  as  to  party  policy  and  public  interest.     He  said 
he  had  not  come  to  make  me  any  of^er  of  the  nomination, 
and  had  no  authority  to  do  so,  nor  to  get  any  pledges  or 
promises.     He  simply  v/anted  a  frank  definition  of  my  atti- 
tude towards  existing  party  conditions. 

To  this  I  replied  that  I  should  like  to  be  nominated,  and 
if  nominated  would  promise  to  throw  myself  into  the  cam- 
paign with  all  possible  energy.  I  said  that  I  should  not 
make  war  on  Mr.  Piatt  or  anybody  else  if  war  could  be 
avoided ;  that  what  I  wanted  was  to  be  CJovernor  and  not  a 
faction  leader ;  that  I  certainly  would  confer  with  the  organi- 
zation men,  as  with  everybody  else  who  seemed  to  me  to  have 
knowledge  of  and  interest  in  public  affairs,  and  that  as  to  Mr. 
Piatt  and  the  organization  leaders,  I  would  do  so  in  the  sin- 
cere hope  that  there  might  always  result  harmony  of  opinion 
and  purpose ;  but  that  while  I  would  try  to  get  on  well  with 
the  organization,  the  organization  must  with  equal  sincerity 
strive  to  do  what  I  regarded  as  essential  for  the  public  good  ; 
and  that  in  ev.  \y  case,  after  full  consideration  of  what 
everybody  had  to  say  who  might  possess  real  knowledge  of 
the  matter,  I  should  have  to  act  finally  as  my  own  judg- 
ment and  conscience  dictated  and  administer  the  State 
government  as  1  thought  it  ought  to  he  administered. 
Quigg  said  that  this  was  precisely  what  he  supposed  I  would 
say,  that  it  was  all  anybody  could  expect,  and  that  he  would 


III 

1,1 
;if 


[« 


396    THKODORK    RCX)SKVi:iT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


■'I.. 


state  it  to  Senator  Piatt  precisely  as  I  had  put  it  to  him, 
which  he  accordingly  dicl ;  and,  throughout  my  term  as 
Governor,  Quigg  lived   loyally  up  to  our  understanding.' 

After  being  nominated,  I  made  a  hard  and  aggressive 
campaign  through  the  State.  My  opponent  was  a  respect- 
able man,  a  judge,  behind  whom  stood  Mr.  Croker,  the  boss 
of  Tammany  Hall.  My  object  was  to  make  the  people 
understand  that  it  was  Croker,  and  not  the  nominal  canaidate, 
who  was  my  real  opponent ;  that  the  choice  lay  betv  ii  Cro- 
kcrism  and  myself.  Croker  was  a  powerful  and  truculent 
man,  the  autocrat  of  his  organization,  and  of  a  domineering 
nature.  For  his  own  reasons  he  insisted  upon  Tammany's 
turning  down  an  excellent  Democratic  judge  who  was  a 
candidate  for  reelection.  This  gave  me  my  chance.  Undrr 
my  attack,  Croker,  who  was  a  stalwart  fighting  man  and 
who  would  not  take  an  attack  tamely,  himself  came  to  the 
front.  I  was  able  to  fix  the  contest  in  the  public  mind  as 
one  between  himself  and  myself;  and,  against  all  j.roba- 
bilities,  i  won  by  the  rather  narrow  margin  of  eighteen  thou- 
sand plurality. 

As  I  have  already  said,  there  is  a  limatic  fringe  to  every 
reform  movement.  At  least  nine-tenths  of  all  the  sincere 
reformers  supported  me ;  but  the  ultra-pacificists  the  so- 
called  anti-imperialists,  or  anti-militarists,  or  peac*.  at-any- 
price  men,  preferred  Croker  to  me;  and  another  knot  of 
extremists  who  had  at  first  ardently  insisted  that  I  must  be 
"forced"  on  Piatt,  as  soon  as  Piatt  supported  me  themselves 
opposed  me  because  he  supported  me.  Aftei  election  John 
Hay  wrote  me  as  follows:  "While  you  are  Governor,  I 
believe  the  party  can  be  made  solid  as  never  before.  You 
have  already  shown  that  a  man  may  be  absolutely  honest 
and  yet  practical ;  a  reformer  by  instinct  and  a  wise  politi- 
cian ;  brave,  bold,  and  uncompromising,  and  yet  not  a  wild 
ass  of  the  desert.     The  exhibition  made  by  the  professional 


'  In  a  letter  to  me  Mr.  Qiiisi.'  states,  what  1  had  forgotten,  that  I  told  him  to  tell 
the  Senator  that  while  1  would  talk  freely  with  him,  and  had  no  intention  of  be- 
coming a  factional  leader  with  a  personal  organization,  yet  that  I  must  have  direct 
personal  relations  with  everybody,  and  get  their  views  at  first  hand  whenever  I  so 
desired,  because  1  could  not  have  one  man  speaking  for  all. 


•A    < 


THE  NEW  YORK  GOVERNORSHIP 


197 


independents  in  voting  against  you  for  no  reason  on  earth 
except  that  somebody  else  <vas  voting  for  you,  is  a  lesson 
that  is  worth  its  cost."  »,     n         . 

At  that  time  boss  rule  was  at  its  very  zenith.  Mr.  Bryan  s 
candidacy  in  1896  on  a  free  silver  platform  had  threatened 
such  frightful  business  disaster  as  to  make  the  business  men, 
the  wage-workers,  and  the  professional  classts  generally, 
turn  eagerly  to  the  Republican  party.  East  01  the  Missis- 
sippi the  Republican  vote  for  Mr.  .McKinley  was  larger  by 
far  than  it  had  been  for  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  days  when 
the  life  of  the  Nation  was  at  stake.  Mr.  Brya.i  championed 
many  sorely  needed  reforms  in  the  interest  of  the  plain 
people ;  but  many  of  his  platform  proposals,  economic  and 
otherwise,  were  of  such  a  character  that  to  have  put  them 
into  practice  would  have  meant  to  plunge  all  our  people 
into  conditions  far  worse  than  any  of  those  for  which  he 
sought  a  remedy.  The  free  silver  advocates  included  sincere 
and  upright  men  who  were  able  to  .make  a  strong  case  for 
their  position ;  but  with  them  and  dominating  them  were 
all  the  believers  in  the  complete  or  partial  repudiation  of 
National,  State,  and  private  debts ;  and  not  only  the  busi- 
ness men  but  the  workingmen  grew  to  feel  that  under  these 
circumstances  too  heavy  a  price  could  not  be  paid  to  avert 
the  Democratic  triumph.  The  fear  of  Mr.  Bryan  threw 
almost  all  the  leading  men  of  all  cla>;<  i  into  the  arms  of 
whoever  opposed  him. 

The  Republican  bosses,  who  were  already  very  powerful, 
and  who  were  already  in  fairly  close  alliance  with  the  privi- 
leged interests,  now  found  everything  working  to  their 
advantage.  Good  and  high-minded  men  of  conservative 
temperament  in  their  panic  played  into  the  hands  of  the 
ultra-reactionaries  of  business  and  politics.  The  alliance 
between  the  two  kinds  of  privilege,  political  and  financial, 
was  closely  cemented  ;  and  wherever  there  was  any  attempt 
to  break  it  up,  the  cry  was  at  once  raised  that  this  merely 
represented  another  phase  of  the  assault  on  National  honesty 
and  individual  and  mercantile  integrity.  As  so  often  hap- 
pens, the  excesses  and  threats  of  an  unwise  and  extreme 
radicalism   had   resulted   in   immensely  strengthening   vhe 


\i 


i '  i 


298    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

position  of  the  beneficiaries  of  reaction.  This  was  the  era 
when  the  Standard  Oil  Company  achieved  a  mastery  of 
Pennsylvania  politics  so  far-reaching  and  so  corrupt  that  it 
is  difficult  to  describe  it  without  seeming  to  exaggerate. 

In  New  York  State,  United  States  Senator  Piatt  was  the 
absolute  boss  of  the  Republican  party.  "Big  business"  was 
back  of  him  ;  yet  at  the  '..ime  this,  the  most  important  ele- 
ment in  his  strength,  was  only  imperfectly  understood. 
It  was  not  until  I  was  elected  Governor  that  I  myself  came 
to  understand  it.  We  were  still  accustomed  to  talking  of 
the  "machine"  as  if  it  were  something  merely  political, 
with  which  business  had  nothing  to  do.  Senator  Piatt  did 
not  use  his  political  position  to  advance  his  private  fortunes 
—  therein  differing  absolutely  from  many  otlier  political 
bosses.  He  lived  in  hotels  and  had  few  extravagant  tastes. 
Indeed,  I  could  not  find  that  he  had  any  tastes  at  all  except 
for  politics,  and  on  rare  occasions  for  a  very  dry  theology 
wholly  divorced  from  moral  implications.  But  big  business 
men  contributed  to  him  large  sums  of  money,  which  enabled 
him  to  keep  his  grip  on  the  machine  and  secured  for  them  the 
help  of  the  machine  if  they  were  threatened  with  adverse 
legislation.  The  contributions  were  given  in  the  guise  of 
contributions  for  campaign  purposes,  of  money  for  the  good 
of  the  party  ;  when  the  money  was  contributed  there  was 
rarely  talk  of  specific  favors  in  return.'  It  was  simply  put 
into  Mr.  Piatt's  hands  and  treated  by  him  as  in  the  cam- 
paign chest.  Then  he  distributed  it  in  the  districts  where  it 
was  most  needed  by  the  candidates  and  organization  leaders. 
Ordinarily  no  pledge  was  required  from  the  latter  to  the 
bosses,  any  more  than  it  was  required  by  the  business  men 
from  Mr.  Piatt  or  his  lieutenants.  No  pledge  was  needed. 
It  was  all  a  "gentlemen's  understanding."     As  the  Senator 

'  F.acli  nation  has  iis  own  pit  sins  ti>  wliicii  it  is  nu'rciful  and  also  sins  which  it 
treats  as  most  abhorrint.  In  Anu-rica  \vi-  arc  lu-cuiiarly  sonsitivo  about  bij:  money 
tontribiilions  for  which  the  donors  expect  an\  reward.  In  I'.nj-'land,  w  here  in  some 
wavs  the  standard  is  hiirher  than  here,  such  contributions  are  accepted  as  a  matter 
of  course.  na\.  as  one  of  the  methods  by  which  wealthy  men  obtain  peeraKes.  h 
would  be  well-nij-'h  an  impossibility  for  a  man  to  secure  a  scat  in  the  I'tiitcd  States 
Senate  by  mere  canipaiirn  contributions,  in  the  way  that  scats  in  the  British  House 
of  Lords  have  often  been  becured  williuut  any  scandal  being  caused  ihercbj . 


THE   XFAV   YORK   CO\ER\ORSHIP 


299 


once  said  to  me,  if  a  man's  character  was  such  that  it  was 
necessary  to  get  a  promise  from  him,  it  was  clear  proof  that 
his  character  was  such  that  I'v  promise  would  not  be  worth 
anything  after  it  was  m.'  -c. 

It  must  not  be  forgottc  -i  Uuit  sot'ic  o;  :he  worst  practices  of 
the  machine  in  dealing;  ((  tliis  ki  .1  represented  merely 
virtues  in  the  wrong  plac ',  virtues  v.  renched  cut  of  proper 
relation  to  their  surroundings.  A  ir.an  in  a  doubtful  district 
might  win  only  because  of  the  help  Mr.  Piatt  gave  him ; 
he  might  be  a  decent  young  fellow  without  money  enough 
to  finance  his  own  campaign,  who  was  able  to  finance  it  only 
because  Piatt  of  his  own  accord  found  out  or  was  apprised 
of  his  need  and  advanced  the  money.  Such  a  man  felt 
grateful,  and,  because  of  his  good  qualities,  joined  with  the 
purely  sordid  and  corrupt  heelers  and  crooked  politicians  to 
become  part  of  the  Piatt  machine.  In  his  turn  Mr.  Piatt  was 
recognized  by  the  business  men,  the  big  contributors,  as  an 
honorable  man  ;  not  only  a  man  of  his  word,  but  a  man  who, 
whenever  he  received  a  favor,  could  be  trusted  to  do  his  best 
to  repay  it  on  any  f)ccasion  that  arose.  I  believe  that 
usually  the  contributors,  and  the  recipient,  sincerely  felt 
that  the  transaction  was  proper  and  subserved  the  cause  of 
good  politics  and  good  business ;  and,  indeed,  as  regards 
the  major  part  of  the  contributions,  it  is  probable  that  this 
was  the  fact,  and  that  the  only  criticism  that  could  properly 
be  made  about  the  contributions  was  that  they  were  not 
made  with  publicity  —  and  at  that  time  neither  the  parties 
nor  the  public  had  any  realization  that  publicity  was  neces- 
sary, or  any  adequate  understanding  of  the  dangers  of  the 
"invisible  empire"  which  throve  by  what  was  done  in 
secrecy.  Many,  probably  most,  of  the  contributors  of  this 
type  never  wished  anything  personal  in  exchange  for  their 
contributions,  and  made  them  with  sincere  patriotism,  de- 
siring in  return  only  that  the  Government  should  be  con- 
ducted on  a  proper  basis.  Unfortunately,  it  was,  in  prac- 
tice, exceedingly  difficult  to  distinguish  these  men  from  the 
others  who  contributed  big  sums  to  the  various  party 
bosses  with  the  expectation  of  gaining  concrete  and  personal 
advantages  (in  which  the  bosses  shared)  at  the  expense  of  the 


m 


HI 


300    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

general  public.     It  was  very  hard  to  draw  the  line  between 
these  two  types  of  contributions. 

There  was  but  one  kind  of  money  contribution  as  to  which 
it  seemed  to  me  absolutely  impossible  for  either  the  con- 
triijutor  or  the  recipient  to  disguise  to  themselves  the  evil 
meaning  of  the  contribution.     This  was  where  a  big  corpora- 
tion contributed  to  both  political  parties.     I  knew  of  one 
such  case  where  in    a   State   campaign  a   big   corporation 
which  had  many  dealings  with  public  officials  frankly  con- 
tributed in  the  neighborhood  of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 
to  one  campaign  fund  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  the  cam- 
paign fund  of  the  other  side  —  and,  I  believe,  made  some 
further  substantial  contributions  in  the  same  ratio  of  two 
dollars  to  one  side  for  every  one  dollar  given  to  the  other. 
The  contributors  were  Democrats,  and  the  big  contributions 
went  to  the  Democratic  managers.     The  Republican  was 
elected,   and   after  his  election,   when   a   matter  came   up 
affecting  the  company,  in  which  its  interests  were  hostile 
to  those  of  the  general  public,  the  successful  candidate,  then 
holding  a  high  State  office,  was  approached  by  his  cam- 
paign managers  and  the  situation  rut  frankly  before  him. 
He    was    less    disturbed    than    astonished,    and    remarked, 
"Why,  I  thought  So-and-so  and  his  associates  were  Demo- 
crats and  subscribed  to  the  Democratic  campaign  fund." 
"So  they  did,"  was  the  answer;    "they  subscribed  to  them 
twice  as'much  as  they  subscribed  to  us,  but  if  they  had  had 
anv  idea  that  you  intended  doing  what  you  now  say  you  will 
do^  they  would  have  subscribed  it  all  to  the  other  side,  and 
more  too."     The  State  official  in  his  turn  answered  that  he 
was  very  sorry  if  any  one  had  subscribed  under  a  misappre- 
hension, that  it  was  no  fault  of  his,  for  he  had  stated  definitely 
and  clearly  his  position,  that  he  of  course  had  no  money 
wherewith  himself  to  return  what  without  his  knowledge  had 
been  contributed,  and  that  all  he  could  say  was  that  any 
man  who  had  subscribed  to  his  campaign  fund  under  the 
impression  that  the  receipt  of  the  subscription  would  be  a 
bar  to  the  performance  of  public  duty  was  sadly  mistaken. 
The  control  by  Mr.  Piatt  and  his  lieutenants  over  the 
organization   was   well-nigh   complete.     There   were   splits 


THE   NEW  YORK  GOVERNORSHIP 


301 


among  the  bosses,  and  insurgent  movements  now  and  then, 
but  the  ordinary  citizens  had  no  control  over  the  political 
machinery  except  in  a  very  few  districts.  There  were,  how- 
ever, plenty  of  good  men  in  politics,  men  who  cither  came 
from  districts  where  there  was  popular  control,  or  who  rep- 
resented a  genuine  aspiration  towards  good  citizenship  on 
the  part  of  some  boss  or  group  of  bosses,  or  else  who  had  been 
nominated  frankly  for  reasons  of  expediency  by  bosses 
whose  attitude  towards  good  citizenship  was  at  best  one  of 
Gallio-like  indifference.  At  the  time  when  1  was  nominated 
for  Governor,  as  later  when  Mr.  Hughes  was  nominated  and 
renominated  for  Governor,  there  was  no  possibility  of  secur- 
ing the  nomination  unless  the  bosses  permitted  it.  In  each 
case  the  bosses,  the  machine  leaders,  took  a  man  for  whom 
they  did  not  care,  because  he  was  ^he  only  man  with  whom 
they  could  win.  In  the  case  of  Mr.  Hughes  there  was  of 
course  also  the  fact  of  pressure  from  the  National  Adminis- 
tration. But  the  bosses  were  never  overcome  in  a  fair  fight, 
when  they  had  made  up  their  minds  to  fight,  until  the 
Saratoga  Convention  in  1910,  when  Mr.  Stimson  was 
nominated  for  Governor. 

Senator  Piatt  had  the  same  inborn  capacity  for  the  kind  of 
politics  which  he  liked  that  many  big  Wall  Street  men  have 
shown  for  not  wholly  dissimilar  types  of  finance.  It  was 
his  chief  interest,  and  he  applied  himself  to  it  unremittingly. 
He  handled  his  private  business  successfully;  but  it  was 
politics  in  which  he  was  absorbed,  and  he  concerned  himself 
therewith  every  day  in  the  year.  He  had  built  up  an  excel- 
lent system  of  organization,  and  the  necessary  funds  came 
from  corporations  and  men  of  wealth  who  contributed  as 
I  have  described  above.  The  majority  of  the  men  with  a 
natural  capacity  for  organization  leadership  of  the  type 
which  has  generally  been  prevalent  in  New  York  politics 
turned  to  Senator  Piatt  as  their  natural  chief  and  helped 
build  up  the  organization,  until  under  his  leadership  it 
became  more  powerful  and  in  a  position  of  greater  control 
than  any  other  Republican  machine  in  the  country,  except- 
ing in  Pennsylvania.  The  Democratic  machines  in  some  of 
the  big  cities,  as  in  New  York  and  Boston,  and  the  country 


302    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AN    ALTOBIOGRAPllV 


I 

r»,r 


Democratic  machine  of  New  York  under  David  B.  Hill,  v\  c 
probably  even  more  efficient,  representing  an  even  more  com- 
plete mastery  by  the  bosses,  and  an  even  greater  degree  of 
drilled  obedience  among  the  henchmen.  It  would  be  an 
enlire  mistake  to  suppose  that  Mr.  Piatt's  lieutenants  were 
either  all  bad  men  or  all  influenced  by  unworthy  motives. 
He  was  constantly  doing  favors  for  men.  He  had  won  the 
gratitude  of  many  good  men.  In  the  country  districts 
especially,  there  were  many  places  where  his  machine  in- 
cluded the  majority  of  the  best  citizens,  the  leading  and 
substantial  citizens,  among  the  inhabitants.  Some  of  his 
strongest  and  most  efficient  lieutenants  were  disinterested 
men  of  high  character. 

There  had  always  been  a  good  deal  of  opposition  to  Mr. 
Piatt  and  the  machine,  but  the  leadership  of  this  opposition 
was  apt  to  be  found  only  among  those  whom  Abraham 
Lincoln  called  the  "silk  stockings,"  and  much  of  it  excited 
almost  as  much  derision  among  the  plain  people  as  the  ma- 
chin  itself  excited  anger  or  dislike.  \'ery  many  of  Mr. 
Piatt's  opponents  really  disliked  him  and  his  methods,  for 
aesthetic  rather  than  for  moral  reasons,  and  the  bulk  of  the 
people  half-consciously  felt  this  and  refused  to  submit  to 
their  leadership.  The  men  who  opposed  him  in  this  manner 
were  good  citizens  according  to  their  lights,  prominent  in  the 
social  clubs  and  in  philanthropic  circles,  men  of  means  and 
often  men  of  business  standing.  They  disliked  coarse  and 
vulgar  politicians,  and  they  sincerely  reprobated  all  the  short- 
comings that  were  recognized  by,  and  were  offensive  to, 
people  of  their  own  caste.  They  had  not  the  slightest  under- 
standing of  the  needs,  interests,  ways  of  thought,  and  con- 
victions of  the  average  small  man;  and  the  small  man  felt 
this,  although  he  could  not  express  it,  and  sensed  that  they 
were  really  not  concerned  with  his  welfare,  and  that  they 
did  not  offer  him  anything  materially  better  from  his  point 
of  view  than  the  machine. 

When  reformers  of  this  type  attempted  to  oppose  Mr. 
Piatt,  they  usually  put  up  either  some  rather  inefficient, 
well-meaning  person,  who  bathed  every  day,  and  didn't 
steal,    but   whose   only   good    point    was   "respectability," 


THE   NKW   YORK.  GOVERNORSHIP 


303 


and  who  knew  nothing  of  the  great  fundamental  questions 
looming  before  us ;  or  else  they  put  up  some  big  business 
man  or  corporation  lawyer  who  was  wedded  to  the  gross 
wrong  and  injustice  of  our  economic  system,  and  who  neither 
by  personality  nor  by  programme  gave  the  ordinary  plain 
people  any  belief  that  there  was  promise  of  vital  good  to 
them  in  the  change.  The  correctness  of  their  view  was 
proved  by  the  fact  that  as  soon  as  fundamental  economic 
and  social  reforms  were  at  stake  the  aesthetic,  as  distinguished 
from  the  genuinely  moral,  reformers,  for  the  most  part 
sided  with  the  bosses  against  the  people. 

When  I  became  Governor,  the  conscience  of  the  people 
was  in  no  way  or  shape  aroused,  as  it  has  since  become 
roused.  The  people  accepted  and  practiced  in  a  matter-of- 
course  way  as  quite  proper  things  which  they  would  not  now 
tolerate.  They  had  no  definite  and  clearly  outlined  con- 
ception of  what  they  wished  in  the  way  of  reform.  They 
on  the  whole  tolerated,  and  indeed  approved  of,  the  machine  ; 
and  there  had  been  no  development  on  any  considerable 
scale  of  reformers  with  the  vision  to  see  what  the  needs  of 
the  people  were,  and  the  high  purpose  sanely  to  achieve 
what  was  necessary  in  order  to  meet  these  needs.  I  knew 
both  the  machine  and  the  silk-stocking  reformers  fairly  well, 
from  many  years'  close  association  with  them.  The  machine 
as  such  had  no  ideals  at  all,  although  many  of  the  men  com- 
posing it  did  have.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ideals  of  very 
many  of  the  silk-stocking  reformers  did  not  relate  to  the 
questions  of  real  and  vital  interest  to  our  people ;  and, 
singularly  enough,  in  international  matters,  these  same  silk- 
stockings  were  no  more  to  be  trusted  than  the  average  igno- 
rant demagogue  or  shortsighted  spoils  politicians.  I  felt 
that  these  men  would  be  broken  reeds  to  which  to  trust  in 
any  vital  contest  for  betterment  of  social  and  industrial 
conditions. 

I  had  neither  the  training  nor  the  capacity  that  would  have 
enabled  me  to  match  Mr.  Piatt  and  his  machine  people  on 
their  own  ground.  Nor  did  I  believe  that  the  effort  to 
build  up  a  machine  of  my  own  under  the  then  existing  condi- 
tions would  meet  the  needs  of  the  situation  so  far  as  the  peo- 


m 


304    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

pie  were  concerned.     I  therefore  made  no  effort  to  create 
a  machine  of  my  own,  and  consistently  adopted  the  plan  of 
going  over  the  heads  of  the  men  holding  public  office  and  of 
the  men  in  control  of  the  organization,  and  appealing  directly 
to  the  people  behind  them.     The  machine,  for  instance,  had 
a  more  or  less  strong  control  over  the  great  bulk  of  the 
members  of  the  State  Legislature ;  but  in  the  last  resort  the 
people  behind  these  legislators  had  a  still  greater  control 
over  them.     I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  only  way  I  could 
beat  the  bosses  whenever  the  need  to  do  so  arose  (and  unless 
there  was  such  need  I  did  not  wish  to  try)  was,  not  by  at- 
tempting to  manipulate  the  machinery,  and  not  by  trusting 
merely  to  the  professional  reformers,  but  by  making  my  ap- 
peal as  directly  and  as  emphatically  as  I  knew  how  to  the 
mass  of  voterr,  themselves,  to  the  people,  to  the  men  who  if 
waked  up  would  be  able  to  impose  their  will  on  their  repre- 
sentatives.    My  success  depended  upon  getting  the  people 
in  the  different  districts  to  look  at  matters  in  my  way,  and 
getting  them  to  take  such  an  active  interest  in  affairs  as  to 
enable  them  to  exercise  control  over  their  representatives. 
There  were  a  few  of  the  Senators  and  Assemblymen  whom 
I  could  reach  by  seeing  them  personally  and  putting  before 
them  my  arguments ;    but  most  of  them  were  too  much 
under  the  control  of  the  machine  for  me  to  shake  them  loose 
unless   they   knew   that   the  people   were   actively   behind 
me.     In  making  my  appeal  to  the  people  as  a  whole  I  was 
dealing  with  an  entirely  different  constituency  from  that 
which,  especially  in  the  big  cities,  liked  to  think  of  itself  as 
the  "better  element,"  the  particular  exponent  of  reform  and 
good  citizenship.     I  was  dealing  with  shrewd,  hard-headed, 
kindly  men  and  women,  chiefly  concerned  with  the  absorbing 
work  of  earning  their  own  living,  and  impatient  of  fads,  who 
had  grown  to  feel  that  the  associations  with  the  word  "re- 
former" were  not  much  better  than  the  associations  with  the 
word  "politician."     I  had  to  convince  these  men  and  women 
of  my  good  faith,  and,  moreover,  of  my  common  sense  and 
efficiency.     They  were  most  of  them  strong  partisans,  and  an 
outrage  had  to  be  very  real  and  very  great  to  shake  them 
even  partially  loose  from  their  party  af  liations.     Moreover, 


THE   NEW   YORK  GOXERXORSHIP 


305 


they  took  little  interest  in  any  fight  of  mere  personalities. 
They  were  not  infiuenced  in  the  least  by  the  silk-stocking 
reform  view  of  Mr.  Piatt.  I  knew  that  if  they  were  per- 
suaded that  I  was  engaged  in  a  mere  faction  fight  against 
him,  that  it  was  a  mere  issue  between  his  ambition  and  mine, 
they  would  at  once  become  inditTerent,  and  my  fight  would 
be  lost. 

But  I  felt  that  1  could  count  on  their  support  wherever 
I  could  show  them  that  the  fight  was  not  made  just  for  the 
sake  of  the  row,  that  it  was  not  made  merely  as  a  factional 
contest  against  Senator  Piatt  and  the  organization,  but  was 
waged  from  a  sense  of  duty  for  real  and  tangible  causes  such 
as  the  promotion  of  governmental  efficiency  and  honesty, 
and  forcing  powerful  moneyed  men  to  take  the  proper  atti- 
tude toward  the  community  at  large.  They  stood  by  me 
when  I  insisted  upon  having  the  canal  department,  the  in- 
surance department,  and  the  various  departments  of  the 
State  Government  run  with  efficiency  and  honesty ;  they 
stood  by  me  when  I  insisted  upon  making  wealthy  men  who 
owned  franchises  pay  the  State  what  they  properly  ought 
to  pay ;  they  stood  by  me  when,  in  connection  with  the 
strikes  on  the  Croton  Aqueduct  and  in  Buffalo,  I  promptly 
used  the  military  power  of  the  State  to  put  a  stop  to  rioting 
and  violence. 

In  the  latter  case  my  cliief  opponents  and  critics  were 
local  politicians  who  were  truckling  to  the  labor  vote ;  but 
in  all  cases  coming  under  the  first  two  categories  I  had  serious 
trouble  with  the  State  leaders  of  the  m.'rhinc.  I  always  did 
my  best,  in  good  faith,  to  get  Mr.  Plat,  and  the  other  heads 
of  the  machine  to  accept  my  views,  and  to  convince  them,  by 
repeated  private  conversations,  that  I  was  right.  I  never 
wantonly  antagonized  or  humiliated  them.  I  did  not  wish 
to  humiliate  them  or  to  seem  victorious  over  them  ;  what  I 
wished  was  to  secure  the  things  that  I  thought  it  essential 
to  the  men  and  women  of  the  State  to  secure.  If  I  could 
finally  persuade  them  to  support  me,  well  and  good ;  in 
such  case  I  continued  to  work  with  them  in  the  friendliest 
manner. 

If  after  repeated  and  persistent  effort  T  failed  to  get  them 


If 


3o6    THEODORli    ROOSE\  KLT  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to  support  mc,  then  I  made  a  fair  fight  in  the  open,  and  in  a 
majority  of  cases  1  carried  my  point  and  succeeded  in  getting 
through  the  legislation  which  I  wished.  In  theory  the  Execu- 
tive has  nothing  to  do  witii  legislation.  In  practice,  as 
things  now  are,  the  K.xecutive  is  or  ought  to  be  peculiarly 
representative  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  As  often  as  not  the 
action  of  the  Executive  offers  the  only  means  by  which  the 
people  can  get  the  legislation  they  demand  and  ought  to 
have.  Therefore  a  good  executive  under  the  present  con- 
ditions of  American  political  life  must  take  a  very  active 
interest  in  getting  the  right  kind  of  legislation,  in  addition 
to  performing  his  executive  duties  with  an  eye  single  to  the 
public  welfare.  More  than  half  of  my  work  as  (jovernor 
was  in  the  direction  of  getting  needed  and  important  legisla- 
tion. I  accomplished  this  only  by  arousing  the  people,  and 
riveting  their  attention  on  what  was  done. 

Gradually  the  people  began  to  wake  up  more  and  more 
to  the  fact  that  the  machine  politicians  were  not  giving  them 
the  kind  of  government  which  they  wished.  As  this  waking 
up  grew  more  general,  not  merely  in  New  York  or  any  other 
one  State,  but  throughout  most  of  the  Nation,  the  power  of 
the  bosses  waned.  Then  a  curious  thing  happened.  The 
professional  reformers  who  had  most  loudly  criticized  these 
bosses  began  to  change  toward  them.  Newspaper  editors, 
college  presidents,  corporation  lawyers,  and  big  business 
men,  all  alike,  had  denounced  the  bosses  and  had  taken  part 
in  reform  movements  against  them  so  long  as  these  reforms 
dealt  only  with  things  that  were  superficial,  or  with  funda- 
mental things  that  did  not  affect  themselves  and  their  as- 
sociates. But  the  majority  of  these  men  turned  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  bosses  when  the  great  new  movement  began 
clearly  to  make  itself  evident  as  one  against  privilege  in 
business  no  less  than  against  privilege  in  politics,  as  one  for 
social  and  industrial  no  less  than  for  political  righteousness 
and  fair  dealing.  The  big  corporation  lawyer  who  had 
antagonized  the  boss  in  matters  which  he  regarded  as  purely 
political  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  boss  when  the 
movement  for  betterment  took  shape  in  direct  attack  on  the 
combination  of  business  with  politics  and  with  the  judiciary 


THE  NEW  YORK  G0\  ERXORSHIP 


307 


which  has  done  so  much  to  enthrone  privilege  in  the  economic 
world. 

The  reformers  who  denounced  political  corruption  and 
fraud  when  shown  at  the  expense  of  their  own  candidates  by- 
machine  wird  heelers  of  a  low  type  hysterically  applauded 
similar  corrupt  trickery  when  practiced  by  these  same 
politicians  against  men  with  whose  political  and  industrial 
programme  the  reformers  were  not  in  sympathy.  I  had 
always  been  instinctively  and  by  nature  a  democrat, 
but  if  I  had  needed  conversion  to  the  democratic  ideal  here  in 
America  the  stimulus  would  have  been  supplied  by  what  I 
saw  of  the  attitude,  not  merely  of  the  bulk  of  the  men  of 
greatest  wealth,  but  of  the  bulk  of  the  men  who  most 
prided  themselves  upon  their  education  and  culture,  when 
we  began  in  good  faith  to  grapple  with  the  wrong  and  injus- 
tice of  our  social  and  industrial  system,  and  to  hit  at  the 
men  responsible  for  the  wrong,  no  matter  how  high  they 
stood  in  business  or  in  politics,  at  the  bar  or  on  the  bench. 
It  was  while  I  was  Governor,  and  especially  in  connection 
with  the  franchise  tax  legislation,  that  I  first  became  thor- 
oughly aware  of  the  real  causes  of  this  attitude  among  the 
men  of  great  wealth  and  among  the  men  who  took  their 
tone  from  the  men  of  great  wealth. 

\'ery  soon  after  my  victory  in  the  race  for  (jovernor  I  had 
one  or  two  experiences  with  Senator  Piatt  which  showed  in 
amusing  fashion  how  absolute  the  rule  of  the  boss  was  in  the 
politics  of  that  day.  Senator  Piatt,  who  was  always  most 
kind  and  friendly  in  his  personal  relations  with  me,  asked 
me  in  one  day  to  talk  over  what  was  to  be  done  at  Albany. 
He  had  the  two  or  three  nominal  heads  of  the  organization 
with  him.  They^  were  his  lieutenants,  who  counseled  and 
influenced  him,  whose  advice  he  often  followed,  b''t  who, 
when  he  had  finally  made  up  his  mind,  merely  registered  and 
carried  out  his  decrees.  After  a  little  conversation  the 
Senator  asked  if  I  had  any  member  of  the  Assembly  whom  I 
wished  to  have  put  on  any  committee,  explaining  that  the 
committees  were  being  arranged.  I  answered  no,  and 
expressed  my  surpiisc  at  what  he  had  said,  because  I  had  not 
understood    the    Speaker   who  appointed    the    committees 


ii 


ijjil 


30S     rilKODORK    ROOSFAKLT-AN    AITOBIOGRAPHY 

had  himsi-lf  been  agreed  upon  by  the  mcmbcrs-dcct.  "Oh  !" 
responded  the  Senator,  with  a  tolerant  smile,  "He  has  not 
been  chosen  vet,  but  of  course  whoever  we  choose  as  Spealcer 
will  agree  beforehand  to  make  the  appointments  we  wish." 
I  made  a  mental  note  to  the  effect  that  if  they  attempted 
the  same  process  >vith  the  (lovernor-elect  they  would  find 
themselves  mistaken. 

In  a  few  days  the  opportunity  t  prove  this  arrived. 
Under  the  preceding  Administration  there  had  been  grave 
scandals  about  the  Krie  Canal,  the  trans-State  Canal,  and 
these  scandals  had  been  one  of  the  chief  issues  in  the  cam- 
paign for  the  (Governorship.  The  construction  of  this  work 
was  under  the  control  of  the  Superintendent  of  Public  Works. 
In  the  actual  state  of  affairs  his  office  was  by  far  the  most 
important  office  under  me,  and  I  intended  to  appoint  to  it 
some  man  of  high  character  and  capacity  who  could  be 
trusted  to  do  the  work  not  merely  honestly  and  efficiently, 
but  without  regard  to  politics.  A  wx-ek  (jr  so  after  the 
Speakership  incident  Senator  Piatt  asked  me  to  come  and 
see  him  (he  w?, ;  an  old  and  physically  feeble  man,  able  to 
move  about  onh   v/ith  extreme  difficulty). 

On  arrival  I  found  the  Lieutenant-dovernor  elect,  Mr. 
Woodruff,  who  had  also  been  asked  to  come.  The  Senator 
informed  me  that  he  was  glad  to  say  that  I  would  have  a 
most  admirable  man  as  Superintendent  of  Public  Works, 
as  he  had  just  received  a  telegram  from  a  certain  gcntlernan, 
whom  he  named,  saying  that  he  would  accept  the  position  ! 
He  handed  me  the  telegram.  The  man  in  question  was  a 
man  I  liked;  later  I  appointed  him  to  an  important  office  in 
which  he  did  well.  But  he  came  from  a  city  along  the  line 
of  the  canal,  so  that  I  did  not  think  it  best  that  he  should  be 
appointed  anyhow;  and,  moreover,  what  was  far  more  im- 
portant, it  was  necessary  to  have  it  understood  at  the  very 
outset  that  the  Administration  was  my  Administration  and 
was  no  one  else's  but  mine.  So  I  told  the  Senator  very 
politely  that  I  was  sorry,  but  that  I  could  not  appoint  his 
man.  This  produced  an  explosion,  but  1  declined  to  lose  my 
temper,  merely  repeating  that  I  must  decline  to  accept  any 
man  chosen  for  me,  and  that  I  must  choose  the  man  myself. 


THE  NFAV   YORK  r.0\  KRNORSHIP 


309 


Although  I  was  very  polite,  I  wis  also  very  firrn,  and  Mr. 
Piatt  and  his  friends  finally  abandoned  their  position. 

1  appointed  an  engineer  from  Brooklyn,  a  vteran  of  the 
Civil   War,   Colonel    Partridge,   who  had  served   in  Mayor 
Low's  administration.     He  was  an  excellent   man  in  every 
way.     He  chose  as  his  assistant,  actively  to  superintend  the 
work,  a  Cornell  graduate  named  Klon  IIt)oker,  a  man  with 
no  political  backing  at  all,  picked  simply  because  he  was  the 
best   equipped   man    for    the   place.     The   office,    the    most 
important  office  under  me,  was   run   in   admirable   fashion 
throughout  my  Administratior. ;    1  doubt  if  there  ever  was 
an  important  department  of  the  New  ^'ork  State  CJovern- 
ment  run  with  a  higher  standard  of  efficiency  and  integrity. 
But  this  was  not  all  that  had  to  be  done  about  the  canals. 
Evidently  the  whole  policy  hitherto  pursued  had  been  foolish 
and    inadequate.      I    appointed    a    first-class    non-partisan 
commission  of  business  men  and  experc  engineers  who  went 
into  the  matter  exhaustively,  and  their  report  served  as  the 
basis  upon  which  our  entire  present  canal  system  is  based. 
There  remained  the  question  of  determining  whether  the 
canal  officials  who  were  in  office  before  I  became  Governor, 
and  whom  I  had  declined  to  reapp(jint,  had  been  guilty  of 
any  action  because  of  which  it  would  be  possible  to  proceed 
against  them  criminally  or  otherwise  under  the  law.     Such 
criminal  action  had  been  freely  charged  against  them  during 
the  campaign  by  the  Democratic   (including  the  so-called 
mugwump)  press.     To  determine   this   ma.ter  1  appointed 
two    Democratic    lawyers,    Messrs.    Fox    and    MacFarlane 
(the  latter  Federal  District  Attorney  for  New  York  under 
President  Cleveland),  and  put   the  whole  investigation  in 
their  hands.     These  gentlemen  made  an  exhaustive  investi- 
gation lasting  several   months.     They   reported  that   there 
had  been  grave  delinquency  in  the  prosecution  of  the  work, 
delinquency  which  justified  public  condemnation  of  those  re- 
sponsible for  it  (who  were  out  of  ofiice),  but  that  there  was 
no   ground   for   criminal    prosecution.      I    laid    their    report 
before   the   Legislature   with   a    message   in    which    I    said: 
"There  is  probably  no  lawyer  of  high  standing  in  the  State 
who,  after  studying  the  report  of  counsel  in  this  case  and 


3IO    THKODORK    ROOSFA  FIT-  AN    AITOBIOCRAPHY 

tlu-  tfstimonv  taken  by  tlu-  invc-stigatinji  commission,  would 
disaK'rci-  witli  llu-m  as  to  the  impracticability  of  a  successful 
prosecution.  Under  such  circumstances  the  one  remedy 
was  a  thorough  change  in  the  methods  and  management. 
This  change  has  been  made." 

When  my  successor  in  the  CJovernorship  took  othce, 
Colonel  Partridge  retired,  and  Klon  Hooker,  finding  that  he 
could  no  longer  act  with  entire  disregard  of  politics  and  with 
an  eye  single  to  the  efficiency  of  'he  work,  also  left.  A  dozen 
years  later  -having  in  the  meantime  made  a  marked  suc- 
cess in  a  business  career  —  he  became  the  Treasurer  of  the 
National  Progressive  party. 

My  action  in  regard  to  the  canals,  and  the  management  o 
his  office,  the  most  important  office  under  me,  by  Colonel 
Partridge,  established  my  relations  with  Mr.  Piatt  from  the 
outset  on  pretty  nearly  the  right  basis.  But,  besides  various 
small  difficulties,  we  had  one  or  two  serious  bits  of  trouble 
before  my  duties  as  (ioverior  cease  ..  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Mr.  Piatt  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  large 
part  of,  and  sometimes  a  majority  of,  the  Legislature.  There 
were  a  few  entirelv  independent  men  such  as  Nathaniel 
Elsberg,  Regis  Post,  and  Alford  Cooley,  in  each  of  the 
two  houses;  the  remainder  were  under  the  control  of  the 
Republican  and  Democratic  bosses,  but  could  also  be  more  or 
less  influenced  by  an  aroused  public  opinion.  The  two  ma- 
chines were  apt  to  make  common  cause  if  their  vital  interests 
were  touched.  It  was  my  business  to  devise  methods  by 
which  either  the  two  machines  could  be  kept  apart  or  else 
overthrown  if  they  came  together. 

My  desire  was  to  achieve  results,  and  not  merely  to  issue 
manifestoes  of  virtue.  It  is  very  easy  to  be  efficient  if  the 
efficiency  is  based  on  unscrupulousness,  and  it  is  still  easier 
to  be  virtuous  if  one  is  content  with  the  purely  negative 
virtue  which  consists  in  not  doing  anything  wrong,  but  being 
wholly  unable  to  accomplish  anything  positive  for  good. 
My  favorite  quotation  from  Josh  Billings  again  applies: 
it  is  so  much  easier  to  be  a  harmless  dvive  than  a  wise  serpent. 
My  duty  was  to  combine  both  idealism  and  efficiency.  At 
that  time  the  public  conscience  was  still  dormant  as  regards 


THK   NKW    YORK   (KU  KRNOKSHIP 


3" 


many  species  of  political  and  business  misconduct,  as  to 
which  during  the  next  decade  it  became  sensitive.  I  had  to 
work  with  the  tools  at  hand  and  to  take  into  account  the 
feeling  of  the  people,  which  I  have  already  described.  My 
aim  was  persistently  to  refuse  to  be  put  in  a  position  where 
what  I  did  would  seem  to  be  a  mere  faction  struggle  against 
Senator  Piatt.  .My  aim  was  to  make  a  fight  only  when  I 
could  so  manage  it  that  there  could  be  no  question  in  the 
minds  of  honest  men  that  my  prime  purpose  was  not  to 
attack  .Mr.  Piatt  or  any  one  else  except  as  a  necessary  in- 
cident to  securing  clean  and  efficient  government. 

In  each  case  I  did  my  best  to  persuade  Mr.  Piatt  not  to 
oppose  me.  1  endeavored  to  make  it  clear  to  him  that  I  was 
not  trying  to  wrest  the  organization  from  him;  and  I  al- 
ways gave  him  in  detail  the  reasons  why  I  felt  I  had  to  take 
the  position  I  intended  to  adopt.  It  was  only  after  I  had 
exhausted  all  the  resources  of  my  patience  that  I  would 
finally,  if  he  still  proved  obstinate,  tell  him  that  I  intended  to 
make  the  fight  anyhow.  .\s  I  have  said,  the  Senator  was  an 
old  and  feeble  man  in  physique,  and  it  was  possible  for  him 
to  go  about  very  little.  I'ntil  Friday  evening  he  would  be 
kept  at  his  duties  at  Washington,  while  I  was  in  Albany. 
If  I  wished  to  see  him  it  generally  had  to  be  at  his  hotel  in 
New  York  on  Saturday,  and  usually  I  would  go  there  to 
breakfast  with  him.  The  one  thin,-,'  I  would  not  permit  was 
anything  in  the  nature  of  a  secret  or  clandestine  meeting.  I 
always  insisted  on  going  openly.  Solemn  reformers  of  the 
tom-fool  variety,  who,  accordinir  to  their  custom,  paid  atten- 
tion to  the  name  and  not  the  thing,  were  much  exercised  over 
my  "breakfasting  with  Piatt."  Whenever  I  breakfasted 
with  him  they  became  sure  that  the  fact  carried  with  it  some 
sinister  significance.  The  worthy  creatures  n^  ver  took  the 
trouble  to  follow  the  sequence  of  facts  and  evxiils  for  them- 
selves. If  they  had  done  so  they  would  have  seen  that  any 
series  of  breakfasts  with  Piatt  always  meant  that  I  was 
going  to  do  something  he  diil  not  like,  and  that  I  was  trying, 
courteously  and  frankly,  t(>  reconcile  him  to  it.  My  object 
was  to  make  it  as  easy  as  possible  for  him  to  come  with  me. 
As  long  as  there  was  no  clash  between  us  there  was  no  object 


312 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT- AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


in  my  seeing  him ;  it  was  only  when  the  clash  came  or  was 
imminent  that  I  had  to  sec  him.  A  scries  of  breakfasts  was 
always    the    prelude    to   some    active    warfare.'     In    every 

instance  I  substantially  car- 


ried my  point,  although  in 
some  cases  not  in  exactly 
the  way  in  which  I  had 
originally  hoped. 

There  were  various  meas- 
ures   to    which    he    gave    a 
grudging  and  querulous  as- 
sent without  any  break  being 
threatened.     I    secured  the 
rcenactment    of     the    Civil 
Service    Law,    which    under 
my    predecessor    had    very 
foolishly   been    repealed.     I 
secured  a  mass  of  labor  legis- 
lation, including  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  to  increase  the 
numberof  factory  inspectors, 
to  create  a  Tenement-House 
Commission  (whose  findings 
resulted  in  further  and  excel- 
lent legislation   to   improve 
housing  conditions),  to  regu- 
late and  improve  sweatshop 
labor,  to    make    the    eight- 
hour  and  prevailing  rate  of 
wages  la w  effective,  to  secure  the  genuine  enforcement  of  the  act 
relating  to  the  hours  of  railway  workers,  to  compel  railways  to 
equip  freight  trains  with  air-brakes,  to  regulate  the  working 
hours  of  women  and  protect  both  women  and  children  from 

'To  ilhislr.-.te  my  meaning'  I  quote  from  a  letter  of  mine  to  Senator  Piatt  of 
Decciiibcr  I ;.  l**iW.  He  liaJ  been  tr\intj  to  jret  me  to  promote  a  certain  Jiidpe  X 
over  the  head  of  another  |uJ).'e  V.  I  wrote  :  '•There  is  a  strong-  feeling  amonp  the 
judi-'es  and  the  leading  members  of  the  bar  that  judKe  ^'  ouiiht  not  to  lia%;e  Judpe  X 
jumped  over  his  head,  and  I  do  niit  see  my  way  clear  to  doinp  it.  1  am  iiichned  to 
think  that  the  solution  I  mentioned  to  you  is  the  solution  1  shall  have  to  adopt. 
Remember  the  breakfast  at  Douglas  Robinson's  at  8  :J0." 


(■o|)>rl«iit  1),  I'ui'li  liiiiiliir, 

William  Lokh,  Jr. 

'  Mr.  Loib  cave  me  much  information  about 
various  impriiixT  practices  in  the  insur- 
ance hu.Mness." 


THE   NEW   YORK  GOVERNORSHIP 


313 


dangerous  machinery,  to  enforce  good  scaffolding  provisions 
for  workmen  on  buildings,  to  provide  seats  for  the  use  of 
waitresses  in  hotels  and  restaurants,  to  reduce  the  hours  of 
labor  for  drug-store  clerks,  to  provide  for  the  registration  of 
laborers  for  municipal  employment.  I  tried  hard  but  failed 
to  secure  an  employers'  liability  law  and  the  state  control 
of  employment  offices.  There  was  hard  fighting  over  some 
of  these  bills,  and,  what  was  much  more  serious,  there  was 
effort  to  get  round  the  law  by  trickery  and  by  securing  its 
inefficient  enforcement.  I  was  continually  helped  by  men 
with  whom  I  had  gotten  in  touch  while  in  the  Police  Depart- 
ment; men  such  as  James  Hronson  Reynolds,  through  whom 
I  first  became  interested  in  settlement  work  on  the  East 
Side.  Once  or  twice  I  went  suddenly  down  to  New  York  City 
without  warning  any  one  and  traversed  the  tenement-house 
quarters,  visiting  various  sweat-shops  picked  at  random. 
Jake  Riis  accompanied  me;  and  as  a  result  of  our  inspec- 
tion we  got  not  only  an  improvement  in  the  law  but  a  still 
more  marked  improvement  in  its  administration.  Thanks 
chiefly  to  the  activity  and  good  sense  of  Dr.  John  H.  Pryor,  of 
Buffalo,  and  by  the  use  of  every  pound  of  pressure  which  as 
Governor  I  could  bring  to  bear  in  legitimate  fashion  —  in- 
cluding a  special  emergency  message  —  we  succeeded  in 
getting  through  a  bill  providing  for  the  first  State  hospital 
for  incipient  tuberculosis.  We  got  valuable  laws  for  the 
farmer;  laws  preventing  the  adulteration  of  food  products 
(which  laws  were  equally  valuable  to  the  consumer),  and 
laws  helping  the  dairyman.  In  addition  to  labor  legislation 
I  was  able  to  do  a  good  deal  for  forest  preservation  and  the 
protection  of  our  wild  life.  .Ml  that  later  I  strove  for  in  the 
Nation  in  connection  with  Conservation  was  foreshadowed 
by  what  I  strove  to  obtain  for  New  Wnk  State  when  I  was 
Governor;  and  I  was  already  working  in  connection  with 
Clifford  i^inchot  and  Newell.  I  secured  better  administra- 
tion, and  some  improvement  in  the  laws  themselves.  The 
improvement  in  administration,  and  in  the  character  of 
the  game  and  forest  wardens,  was  secured  partly  as  the  result 
of  a  conference  in  the  executive  chamber  which  I  held  with 
forty  of  the  best  guides  and  woodsmen  of  the  Adirondacks. 


ml 


i 


314    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


t   I: 


As  regards  most  legislation,  even  that  affecting  labor  and 
the  forests,  I  got  on  fairly  well  with  the  machine.  But  on 
the  two  issues  in  which  "big  business"  and  the  kind  of 
politics  which  is  allied  to  big  business  were  most  involved  we 
clashed  hard  —  and  clashing  with  Senator  Piatt  meant 
clashing  with  the  entire  Republican  organization,  and  with 
the  organized  majority  in  each  house  of  the  Legislature. 
One  clash  was  in  connection  with  the  Superintendent  of 
Insurance,  a  man  whose  office  made  him  a  factor  of  immense 
importance  in  the  big  business  circles  of  New  York.  The 
then  incumbent  of  the  office  was  an  efficient  man,  the  boss 
of  an  up-State  county,  a  veteran  politician  and  one  of  Mr. 
Piatt's  right-hand  men.  Certain  investigations  which  I 
made  —  in  the  course  of  the  fight  —  showed  that  this 
Superintendent  of  Insurance  had  been  engaged  in  large  busi- 
ness operations  in  New  York  City.  These  operations  had 
thrown  him  into  a  peculiarly  intimate  business  contact  of 
one  sort  and  another  with  various  financiers  with  whom  I 
did  not  deem  it  expedient  that  the  Superintendent  of  Insur- 
ance, while  such,  should  have  any  intimate  and  secret  money- 
making  relations.  Moreover,  the  gentleman  in  question 
represented  the  straitest  sect  of  the  old-time  spoils  politicians. 
I  therefore  determined  not  to  reappoint  him.  Unless  I 
could  get  his  successor  confirmed,  however,  he  would  stay  in 
under  the  law,  and  the  Republican  machine,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  Tammany,  expected  to  control  far  more  than  a  ma- 
jority of  all  the  Senators. 

Mr.  Piatt  issued  an  ultimatum  to  me  that  the  incumbent 
must  be  reappointed  or  else  that  he  would  fight,  and  that  if 
he  chose  to  fight  the  man  would  stay  in  anyhow  because  I 
could  not  oust  him  —  for  under  the  New  York  Constitution 
the  assent  of  the  Senate  was  necessary  not  only  to  appoint  a 
man  to  office  but  to  remove  him  from  office.  As  always  with 
Mr.  Piatt,  I  persistently  refused  to  lose  my  temper,  no 
matter  what  he  said  —  he  was  much  too  old  and  physically 
feeble  for  there  to  be  any  point  of  honor  in  taking  up  any  of 
his  remarks  and  I  merely  explained  good-humoredly  that 
I  had  made  up  my  mind  and  that  the  gentleman  in  question 
would  not  be  retained.     As  for  not  being  able  to  get  his  sue- 


THE   NEW   YORK  GOVERNORSHIP 


31S 


cesser  confirmed,  I  pointed  out  that  as  soon  as  the  Legisla- 
ture adjourned  I  could  and  would  appoint  another  man 
temporarily.  Mr.  Piatt  then  said  that  the  incumbent 
would  be  put  back  as  soon  as  the  Legislature  reconvened  ; 
I  admitted  that  this  was  possible,  but  added  cheerfully  that 
I  would  remove  him  again  just  as  soon  as  that  Legislature 
adjourned,  and  that  even  though  I  had  an  uncomfortable 
time  myself,  I  would  guarantee  to  make  my  opponents  more 
uncomfortable  still.  We  parted  without  any  sign  of  reach- 
ing an  agreement. 

There  remained  some  weeks  before  final  action  could  be 
taken,  and  the  Senator  was  confident  that  I  would  have  to 
yield.  His  most  efficient  allies  were  the  pretended  reformers, 
most  of  them  my  open  or  covert  enemies,  who  loudly  insisted 
that  I  must  make  an  open  fight  on  the  Senator  himself 
and  on  the  Republican  organization.  This  w?-^  what  he 
wished,  for  at  tl.r»  time  there  was  no  way  of  upsetting  him 
within  the  Republican  party ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  if  I  had 
permitted  the  contest  to  assume  the  shape  of  a  mere  faction 
fight  between  the  Governor  and  the  United  States  Senator, 
I  would  have  insured  the  victory  of  the  machine.  So  I 
blandly  refused  to  let  the  thing  become  a  personal  fight,  ex- 
plaining again  and  again  that  I  was  perfectly  willing  to 
appoint  an  organization  man,  and  naming  two  or  three  whom 
I  was  willing  to  appoint,  but  also  explaining  that  I  would 
not  retain  the  incumbent,  and  w-ould  not  appoint  any  man 
of  his  type.  Meanwhile  pressure  on  behalf  of  the  said  in- 
cumbent began  to  come  from  the  business  men  of  New  York. 

The  Superintendent  of  Insurance  was  not  a  man  whose  ill 
will  the  big  life  insurance  companies  cared  to  incur,  and 
company  after  company  passed  resolutions  asking  me  to 
reappoint  him,  although  in  private  some  of  the  men  who 
signed  these  resolutions  nervously  explained  that  they  did 
not  mean  what  they  had  written,  and  hop'?d  I  would  remove 
the  man.  A  citizen  prominent  in  reform  circles,  marked  by 
the  Cato-Iike  austerity  of  his  reform  professions,  had  a  son 
who  was  a  counsel  for  one  of  the  insurance  companies.  The 
father  was  engaged  in  writing  letters  to  the  papers  demand- 
ing in  the  name  of  uncompromising  virtue  that  I  should  not 


'  i| 


3i6    IHKODORI-:    ROOSKXKLT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

onlv  get  rid  of  the  Supcrintcndcnl  of  Insurance,  but  in  his 
place  should  appoint  somebody  or  other  personally  offensive 
in  Senator  Piatt        wliich  last  proposition,  if  adopted,  would 
have  meant  that  the  Superintendent  of  Insurance  would  have 
staved  in,  for  the  reasons  I  have  already  given.     Meanwhile 
the  son  c-.me  to  see  me  on  behalf  of  the  insurance  company 
he  represented  and  told  me  that  the  company  was  anxious 
that  there  should  be  a  change  in  the  superintendency ;   that 
if  I  really  meant  to  fight, they  thought  they  had  influence  with 
four  of  the    State   Senators,   Democrats   and    Republicans, 
whom  they  could  get  to  vote  to  confirm  the  man  I  nominateu, 
but  that  thev  wished  to  be  sure  that  I  would  not  abandon  the 
fight,  because  it  would  be  a  very  bad  thing  for  them  if  I 
started  the  fight  and  then  backed  down.      I  told  my  v^isitor 
that  he  need  be  under  no  apprehensions,  that  I  would  cer- 
tainly see  the  fight  tlirough.     A  man  who  has  much  to  do  with 
that  'kind  of  politics  which  concerns  both  New  York  politi- 
cians and  New  York  business  men  and  lawyers  is  not  easily 
surprised,  and  therefore  I  felt  no  other  emotion  than  a  rather 
sardonic  amusement  when  thirty-si.x  hours  later  I  read  m  the 
morning  paper  an  open  letter  from  the  oflicials  of  the  very 
companv  who  had  been  communicating  with  me  in  which 
they    en'thusiasticallv    advocated    the   renomination   of   the 
Superintendent.     Shortly  afterwards  my  visitor,  the  young 
lawver,  called  me  up  on  the  telephone  and  explained  that 
the'ofiicials  did  not  mean  what  they  had  said  in  this  letter, 
that  thev  had  been  obliged  to  write  it  for  fear  of  the  Super- 
intendent, but  that  if  they  got  the  chance  they  intended  to 
help  me  get  rid  of  him.      I  thanked  him  and  said  I  thought 
I  could  manage  the  fight  by  myself.     I  did  not  hear  from 
him    again,    though    his    father  continued    to  write    public 
demands  that  I  sh(juld  practice  purr  virtue,  undefiled  and 

offjiisive.  T  1     J     ■   1    J 

Meanwhile  Senator  Piatt  declined  to  yield.  I  had  picked 
out  a  man,  a  friend  of  his.  who  I  believed  would  make  an 
honest  and  competent  official,  and  whose  position  in  the 
organization  was  such  that  I  did  not  believe  the  Senate  would 
venture  to  reject  him.  However,  up  to  the  day  before  the 
appointment  was  to  go  to  the  Senate,  Mr.  Piatt  remained 


;!!i!l 


THE   NEW   YORK   GOVERNORSHIP 


317 


unyielding.     I  saw  him    that   afternoon  and    tried    to  get 
him  to  yield,  but  he  said  No,  that  if  I  insisted,  it  would  be 
war   to  the   knife,   and    my   destruction,   and   perhaps   the 
destruction  of  the  party.     I  said  I  was  very  sorry,  that  I 
could  not  yield,  and  if  the  war  came  it  would  have  to  come, 
and  that  next  morning  I  should  send  in  the  name  of  the 
Superintendent's    successor.     We    parted,    and    soon    after- 
wards I  received  from  the  man  who  was  at  the  moment  Mr. 
Piatt's  right-hand  lieutenant  a  request   to  know  where  he 
could  see  me  that  evening.      I  appointed  the  Union  League 
Club.     My  visitor  went  over  the  old  ground,  explained  that 
the  Senator  would  under  no  circumstances  yield,  that  he 
was  certain  to  win  in  the  fight,  that  my  reputation  would  be 
destroyed,  and  that  he  wished  to  save  me  from  such  a  lamen- 
table smash-up  as  an  ending  to  my  career.     I  could  only 
repeat  what  I  had  alreadv  said,  and  after  half  an  hour  of 
futile  argument    I   rose  and  said    that  nothing  was    to  be 
gained  bv  further  talk  and  that   I  might  as  well  go.     Aly 
visitor  rc-peated  that  I  had  this  last  chance,  and  that- rum 
was  ahead  of  me  if  I  refused  it ;  whereas,  if  I  accepted,  every- 
thing would  be  made  easy.     1  shook  my  head  and  answered, 
"There  is   nothing  to  add  to  what   I   have  already  said. 
He  responded,  "You  have  made  up  your  mind  .'"  and  I  said, 
"  1  have."     He  then  said,  "  ^■ou  know  it  means  your  ruin  .' 
and  I  answered,  "Well,  we  will  see  about  that,"  and  walked 
toward  the  door.     He  said.  "You  understand,  the  fight  will 
begin  to-morrow  and  will  be  carried  on  to  the  bitter  end. 
T  said,   "Yes,"  and   added,  as  I  reached   the  door,    '(.ood 
night."     Then,  as  the  door  opened,  my  oppon^    '    or  visitor, 
whichever  one  chooses  to  call  him,  whose  face     -as  as  im- 
passive and  as  inscrutable  as  that  of  Mr.  John  Hamlin  in  a 
poker  game,  said  :  "  Hold  on  !     We  accept.     Send  in  So-and- 
so  [the  man  I  had  named].     The  Senator  is  very  s^rry,  but 
he  will  make  no  further  opposition  I"      I   never  saxy  a  blutt 
carried   more   resolutelv   through   to   the    final    limit.       My 
success    in    the    aflFair,"  coupled    with    the    appointment    ot 
Messrs.  Partridire  and  Hooker,  secured  me  against  further 
effort  to  interfere  with    my  handling  of   the  executive  de- 
partments. 


!    i! 


3i8    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


It  was  in  connection  with  the  insurance  business  that  I 
first  met  Mr.  George  VV.  Perkins,  He  came  to  me  with  a 
letter  of  introduction  from  the  then  Speaker  of  the  National 
House  of  Representatives,  Tom  Reed,  which  ran:  "Mr. 
Perkins  is  a  personal  friend  of  mine,  whose  straightforward- 
ness and  intelligence  will  commend  to  you  whatever  he  has 
to  say.  If  you  will  give  him  proper  opportunity  to  explain 
his  business,  I  have  no  doubt  that  what  he  will  say  will  be 
worthy  of  your  attention."  Mr.  Perkins  wished  to  see  me 
with  reference  to  a  bill  that  had  just  been  introduced  in  the 
Legislature,  which  aimed  to  limit  the  aggregate  volume  of 
insurance  that  any  New  York  State  company  could  assume. 
There  were  then  three  big  insurance  companies  in  New  York 
—  the  Mutual  Life,  Equitable,  and  New  York  Life.  Mr. 
Perkins  was  a  Vice-President  of  the  New  York  Life  Insur- 
ance Company  and  Mr.  John  A.  McCall  was  its  President. 
I  had  just  finished  my  fight  against  the  Superintendent  of 
Insurance,  whom  I  refused  to  continue  in  office.  Mr. 
McCall  had  written  me  a  very  strong  letter  urging  that  he  be 
retained,  and  had  done  everything  he  could  to  aid  Senator 
Piatt  in  securing  his  retention.  The  Mutual  Life  and  Equi- 
table people  had  openly  followed  the  same  course,  but  in 
private  had  hedged.  They  were  both  backing  the  proposed 
bill.  Mr.  McCall  was  opposed  to  it ;  he  was  in  California, 
and  just  before  starting  thither  he  had  been  told  by  the 
Mutual  Life  and  Equitable  that  the  Limitation  Bill  was 
favored  by  me  and  would  be  put  through  if  such  a  thing  were 
possible.  Mr.  McCall  did  rot  know  me,  and  on  leaving  for 
California  told  Mr.  Perkins  that  from  all  he  could  learn  he 
was  sure  I  was  bent  on  putting  this  bill  through,  and  that 
nothing  he  could  say  to  me  would  change  my  view;  in  fact, 
because  he  had  fought  so  hard  to  retain  the  old  Insurance 
Superintendent,  he  felt  that  I  would  be  particularly  opposed 
to  anything  he  might  wish  done. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  no  such  feeling.  I  had  been 
carefully  studying  the  question.  I  had  talked  with  the 
Mutual  Life  and  Equitable  people  about  it,  but  was  not 
committed  to  any  particular  course,  and  had  grave  doubts 
as  to  whether  it  was  well  to  draw  the  line  on  size  instead  of 


THE  NEW  YORK  GOVERNORSHIP 


319 


on  conduct.  I  was  therefore  very  glad  to  s  e  Perkins  and 
get  a  new  point  of  view.  I  went  over  the  matter  with  a  great 
deal  of  care  and  at  considerable  length,  and  after  we  had 
thrashed  the  matter  out  pretty  fully  and  Perkins  had  laid 
before  me  in  detail  the  methods  employed  by  Austria, 
Germany,  Switzerland,  and  other  European  countries  to 
handle  their  large  insurance  companies,  I  took  the  position 
that  there  undoubtedly  were  evils  in  the  insurance  business, 
but  that  they  did  not  consist  in  insuring  people's  lives,  for 
that  certainly  was  not  an  evil ;  and  I  did  not  see  how  the  real 
evils  could  be  eradicated  by  limiting  or  suppressing  a  com- 
pany's ability  to  protect  an  additional  number  of  lives  with 
insurance.  I  therefore  announced  that  I  would  not  favor 
a  bill  that  limited  volume  of  business,  and  would  not  sign 
it  if  it  were  passed  ;  but  that  I  favored  legislation  that  would 
make  it  impossible  to  place,  through  agents,  policies  that 
were  ambiguous  and  misleading,  or  to  pay  exorbitant  prices 
to  agents  for  business,  or  to  invest  policy-holders'  money 
in  improper  securities,  or  to  give  power  to  officers  to  use  the 
company's  funds  for  their  own  personal  profit.  In  reach- 
ing this  determination  I  was  helped  by  Mr.  Locb,  then 
merely  a  stenographer  in  my  office,  but  who  had  already 
attracted  my  attention  both  by  his  efficiency  and  by  his 
loyalty  to  his  former  employers,  who  were  for  the  most 
part  my  political  opponents.  Mr.  Loeb  gave  me  much 
information  about  various  improper  practices  in  the  insur- 
ance business.  I  began  to  gather  data  on  the  subject,  with 
the  intention  of  bringing  about  corrective  legislation,  for 
at  that  time  I  expected  to  continue  in  office  as  Governor. 
But  in  a  few  weeks  I  was  nominated  as  \'ice-Presidcnt,  and 
my  successor  did  nothing  about  the  matter. 

So  far  as  I  remember,  this  was  the  first  time  the  question 
of  correcting  evils  in  a  business  by  limiting  the  volume  of 
business  to  be  done  was  ever  presented  to  me,  and  my  deci- 
sion in  the  matter  was  on  all  fours  with  the  position  I  have 
always  since  taken  when  any  similar  principle  was  involved. 
At  the  time  when  I  made  my  decision  about  the  Limitation 
Bill,  I  was  on  friendly  terms  with  the  Mutual  and  Equitable 
people  who  were  back  of  it,  whereas  I  did  not  know  Mr. 


<i  il 


ill 


11:'. 

■■  i; 

a 


320    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


McCall    at    all,  and    Mr.   Perkins  only  from    hearing   him 
discuss  the  hill. 

An  interesting  feature  of  the  matter  developed  subse- 
quently. Five  years  later,  after  the  insurance  investigations 
took  place,  the  Mutual  Life  strongly  urged  the  passage  of  a 
Limitation  Bill,  and,  because  of  the  popular  feeling  developed 
by  the  exposure  of  the  improper  practices  of  the  companies, 

this  bill  was  generally  ap- 
proved. Ciovernor  Hughes 
adopted  the  suggestion,  such 
a  bill  was  passed  by  the 
Legislature,  and  Governor 
Hughes  signed  it.  This 
bill  caused  the  three  great 
New  York  companies  co  re- 
duce markedly  the  volume 
of  business  they  were  doing ; 
it  threw  a  great  many  agents 
out  of  employment,  and 
materially  curtailed  the  for- 
eign business  of  the  com- 
panies—  which  business  was 
bringing  annually  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money  to 
this  country  for  investment. 
In  short,  the  experiment 
worked  so  badly  that  before 
Ciovernor  Hughes  went  out 
of  office  one  of  the  ven,-  last  bills  he  signed  was  one  that 
permitted  the  life  insurance  companies  to  increase  their 
business  each  year  by  an  amount  representing  a  certain 
percentage  of  the  business  they  had  previously  done.  This 
in  practice,  within  a  few  years,  practically  annulled  the 
Limitation  Hill  that  had  been  previously  passed.  The 
experiment  of  limiting  t!ie  size  of  business,  of  legislating 
against  it  merely  because  it  was  big,  had  been  tried,  and 
had  failed  so  completely  that  the  authors  of  the  bill  had 
themselves  in  effect  repealed  it.  M_\'  action  in  refusing  to 
try  the  experiment  had  been  completely  justified. 


OkORIIK    I'l.KKI.NS. 

"I  Rol  Mr.  IVrkin>  tn  srrvc  on  ihi'  Palisailf 
I'ark  Commission  ...  to  s;ivi'  tho 
I'ali^ailcs  fr^m  vandalism." 


rilK   M;\V    YORK   ('.(AKRNORSIIIl' 


321 


As  a  srqiicl  to  lliis  iiicidfiit  I  jjot  Mr.  IVrkiiis  to  serve  on 
the  Palisade  Park  Commission  At  tin-  tinu'  I  was  taking 
active  part  in  the  effort  to  sa\e  tlu'  Palisadis  from  xancialism 
and  destruction  1>\  getting;  tiie  States  of  New  ^'ork  and  New 
jersey  jointly  to  include  llieni  in  a  public  park.  It  is  not 
easy  to  get  a  responsible  and  capable  man  of  business  to 
undertake  such  a  task,  which  is  unpaid,  which  calls  on  his 
part  for  an  immense  expenditure  of  time,  money,  and  energy, 
which  offers  no  reward  of  any  kind,  and  which  entails  the 
certainty  of  abuse  and  misrepresentation.  Mr.  Perkins 
accepted  the  position,  and  has  filled  it  for  the  last  thirteen 
years,  doing  as  disinterested,  efficient,  and  useful  a  bit  of 
public  service  as  any  man  in  the  State  has  done  throughout 
these  thirteen  \ears. 

The  case  of  most  importance  in  which  I  clashed  with 
Senator  Piatt  related  to  a  matter  of  fundamental  govern- 
mental polic}-,  and  was  the  first  step  I  ever  took  toward 
bringing  big  corporations  under  effective  governmental 
control.  In  this  case  I  had  to  fight  the  Democratic  machine 
as  well  as  the  Republican  machine,  for  Senator  Hill  and 
Senator  Piatt  were  equally  opposed  to  my  action,  and  the 
big  corporation  men,  the  big  business  men  back  of  both  of 
them,  took  precisely  the  same  view  of  these  matters  without 
regard  to  their  party  feelings  on  other  points.  What  I  did 
convulsed  people  at  that  time,  and  marked  the  beginiiing 
of  the  effort,  at  least  in  the  Kastern  states,  to  make  the 
great  corporations  really  responsible  to  popular  wish  and 
governmental  command.  But  we  have  gone  so  far  past  the 
stage  in  which  we  then  were  that  now  it  seems  well-nigh 
incredible  that  there  should  have  been  any  opposition  at  all 
to  what  I  at  that  time  proposed. 

The  substitution  of  electric  power  for  horse  power  in  the 
street  car  lines  of  New  York  offered  a  fruitful  chance  for  the 
most  noxious  type  of  dealing  between  business  men  and 
politicians.  The  franchises  granted  by  Xew  \'ork  were 
granted  without  any  attempt  to  secure  from  the  grantees 
returns,  in  the  wa\'  of  taxation  or  t)lherwise,  for  the  value 
received.  Th«  fact  that  they  were  thus  granted  by  improper 
favoritism,  a  favoritism  which  in  many  cases  was  unques- 


r-- 


IHKOnORK    KOOSIA  Kl/I"       AN    AITOHIOCRAIMIV 


tionabl)  srcuR-d  by  ilownri^lit  hrilnn  ,  Ud  to  all  kiiuls  ..I 
troubli'.  Ill  iTiiirii  f^r  tin-  (.(iiiiiiiiKiiKi-  <'l  tlusr  improprr 
favors  to  the  corporations  tin-  politicians  expected  improper 
favors  in  the  way  of  excessive  cainpai^n  contributions,  often 
contributed  by  the  same  corporation  at  the  same  time  to 
two  opposing  parties.  Before  I  became  Governor  a  bill 
had  been  introduced  into  the  New  York  Legislature  to  tax 
the  franchises  of  these  street  railways.  It  affected  a  large 
number  of  corporations,  but  particularly  those  in  New  ^()rk 
and  Buffalo.  It  had  been  suffered  to  slumber  undisturbed, 
as  none  of  the  people  in  power  dreamed  of  taking  it  seriously, 
and  both  the  Republican  and  Democratic  machines  were 
hostile  to  it.  I'nder  the  rules  of  the  New  York  Legislature 
a  bill  could  always  be  taken  up  out  of  its  turn  and  passed  if 
the  Governor  sent  in  a  special  emergency  message  on  Us 

belialf.  .  , 

After  I  was  elected  Governor  I  had  my  attention  directed 
to  the  franchise   tax   matter,  looked   into   the  subject,  and 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  a  matter  of  plain  decency 
and  honesty  that  these  companies  should  pay  a  tax  on  their 
franchises,  inasmuch  as  they  did  nothing  that  could  be  con- 
sidered as  service  rendered  the  public  in  lieu  of  a  tax.     This 
seemed  to  me  so  evidently  the  common-sense   and  decent 
thing  to  do  that   I   was  hardly  prepared  for  the  storm  of 
protest    and    anger   which    my   proposal    aroused.     Senator 
Piatt  and  the  other  machine  leaders  did  everything  to  get 
me  to  abandon  my  intention.     .\s  usual,  I  saw  them,  talked 
the  matter  all  over  with  them,  and  did  my  best  to  convert 
them  to  my  way  of  thinking.     Senator  Piatt,  I  believe,  was 
quite  sincere  in  his  opposition.     He  did  not  believe  in  popu- 
lar rule,  and  he  did  believe  that  the  big  business  men  were 
entitled  to  have  things  their  way.     He  profoundly  distrusted 
the  people        naturally  enough,  for  the  kind  of  human  na- 
ture with  which  a  boss  comes  in  contact  is  not  of  an  exalted 
type.     He  felt  that  anarchy  w^ould  come  if  there  was  any 
interference   with   a   system' by   which    the    people    in    mass 
were,   under  various  'necessary    cloaks,    controlled    by    the 
leaders  in  the  political  and  business  worlds.-    He  wrote  me 
a  very  strong  letter  of  protest  against  my  attitude,  expressed 


THK   NKW   ^ORK   C.OV  KRNORSHIP 


323 


in  iliKnifii'd,  friiiully,  aiul  tc-mpcrati-  language,  but  using 
one  word  in  a  curious  way.  This  was  thr  word  "altruistic." 
He  stated  in  his  letter  that  he  had  not  objected  to  my  being 
independent  in  politics,  because  he  had  been  sure  that  I 
had  the  good  of  the  party  at  heart,  and  meant  to  act  fairly 
and  honorably;  but  that  he  had  been  warned,  before  I  be- 
came a  candidate,  by  a  number  of  his  business  friends  that 
I  was  a  dangerous  man  because  I  was  "altruistic,"  and  that 
he  now  feared  that  my  coiuluct  would  justify  the  alarm  thus 
expressed.  I  was  interested  in  this,  not  only  because  Sena- 
tor I'latt  was  obviously  sincere,  but  because  of  the  way  in 
which  he  used  "altruistic"  as  a  term  of  reproach,  as  if  it 
was  Communistic  or  Socialistic  the  last  being  a  word  he 
did  use  to  me  when,  as  now  and  then  happened,  he  thought 
that  my  proposals  warranted  fairl>  reckless  vituperation. 
Senator  Piatt's  letter  ran  in  part  as  follows: 

"When  the  subject  of  your  nomination  was  under  con- 
sideration, there  was  one  matter  that  gave  me  real  anxiety. 
I  think  you  will  have  no  trouble  in  appreciating  the  fact 
that  it  was  not  the  matter  of  your  independence.  I  think 
we  have  got  far  enough  along  in  our  political  accjuaintance 
for  you  to  see  that  my  support  in  a  convention  does  not 
imply  subsequent  'demands,'  nor  any  other  relation  that 
may  not  reasonably  exist  for  the  welfare  of  the  party.  .  .  . 
The  thing  that  did  bother  me  was  this  :  I  had  heard  from  a 
good  many  sources  that  you  were  a  little  loose  on  the  rela- 
tions of  capital  and  labor,  on  trusts  and  combinations,  and, 
indeed,  on  those  numerous  questions  which  have  recently 
arisen  in  politics  affecting  the  security  of  earnings  and  the 
right  of  a  man  to  run  his  own  business  in  his  own  way,  with 
due  respect  of  course  to  the  Ten  Commandments  and  the 
Penal  Code.  Or,  to  get  at  it  even  more  clearly,  I  under- 
stood from  a  number  of  business  men,  and  among  them 
many  of  your  own  personal  friends,  that  you  entertained 
various  altruistic  ideas,  all  very  well  in  their  way,  but  which 
before  they  could  safely  be  put  into  law  needed  very  pro- 
found consideration.  .  .  .  Vou  have  just  adjourned  a  Legis- 
lature which  created  a  good  opinion  throughout  the  State, 


»■■ 


3i4    riiKoDoRK  R(M)si;\i:i;r     AN  miomiocraimiy 

I  conjiratulatf  you  heartily  upon  this  fact  bi-causc  I  sincerely 
believe,  as  everybody  elsi  does,  that  this  puid  inipression 
exists  very  lar>;ely  as  a  result  of  your  personal  influence  in 
the  Legislative  chaitibers.  But  at  the  last  moment,  and  to 
mv  very  j^reat  surprise,  sdu  did  a  tiling  which  has  caused  the 
business  community  of  New  ^'ork  to  wonder  liow  far  the 
notions  of  Populism,  as  laid  doun  in  Kansas  and  Nebraska, 
have  taken  hold  upon  the  Republican  party  of  the  State 
of  New  ^Ork." 

In  my  answer  I  pointed  out  to  the  Senator  that  I  had  as 
(iovernor  unhesitatingly  acted,  at  liufFalo  and  elsewhere, 
to  put  down  mobs,  without  rejrard  to  the  fact  that  the  pro- 
fessed leaders  of  labor  furiously  denouncetl  me  for  so  doinjr; 
but  that  I  could  no  more  tolerate  wroii>:  committed  in  the 
name  of  property  than  wron>:  committed  ajjainst  property. 
My  letter  ran  in  part  as  follows  :  "I  knew  that  you  had  just 
the  feeling's  that  you  describe;  that  is,  apart  from  my  'im- 
pulsiveness,' you  felt  that  there  was  a  justifiable  anxiety 
among  men  of  means,  and  especially  men  representing  large 
corporate  interests,  lest  I  might  feel  too  strongly  on  what  you 
term  the  'altruistic'  side  in  mattrrs  of  labor  and  capital  and 
as  regards  the  relations  of  the  Slate  to  great  corporations. 
...  I  know  that  when  parties  divide  on  such  issues 
[as  Bryanism]  the  tendency  is  to  force  everybody  into  one  of 
two  camps,  and  to  throw  out  entirely  men  like  myself,  who 
arc  as  strongly  opposed  to  Populism  in  every  stage  as  the 
greatest  representative  of  corporate  wealth,  but  who  also 
feel  strongly  that  man\'  of  these  representatives  of  enormous 
corporate  wealth  have  themselves  been  responsible  for  a 
portion  of  the  conditions  against  which  Bryanism  is  in 
ignorant  revolt.  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  wise  or  safe  for 
us  as  a  party  to  take  refuge  in  mere  negation  and  to  say  that 
there  are  no  evils  to  be  corrected.  It  seems  to  me  that  our 
attitude  should  be  one  of  correcting  the  evils  and  thereby 
showing  that,  whereas  the  l*opulists,  Socialists,  and  others 
lealU  do  not  Correct  the  tvils  at  all,  or  else  only  do  so  at  the 
expense  of  producing  others  in  aggravated  form,  on  the 
contrary   we    Republicans   hold    the   just    balance   and    set 


IIIK    M  W     NHRK    (;()\  IRNOKSIIIP 


325 


uiiimIvi^  as  n-oliilcly  avr.iiiist  impn'|Hr  o>ip'  'ali'  iiiHiKiKi' 
on  llu-  i>iu-  liaiul  as  atMiiist  diinav'ouN    aial  ulc  on  tlir 

other.      I    iitKliTstaiKl    ptrfittl)    tliat    nucIi    ..       .ititudc   of 
moderation  is  apt   to  h«-  miMiiulorstood  when  passions  arc 
jjrcatly  i-xcittd  ami  when   victor)    is  apt   to  rest   with   the 
extremists  (.n  one-  side  or  tlie  otlier;    yet  I  think  it  is  in  the 
lon^'  run  the  onlv  wise  attitude.   ...      I   appreciate  abso- 
hiteiy  (wliat  .\Ir.  Phitt  had  said]  that  any  applause  I  pet  will 
be  too  evanescent  for  a  moment's  consideration.      I  appre- 
ciate absolutely  that  the  people  who  now  loudly  approve  of 
mv  acti(m  in  the  franchise  tax  bill  will  forget  all  about  it  in  a 
fortnight,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  very  powerful 
interests  adversely  affected  will  alwa\s   remember  it.   .  .  . 
[The  leaders]   ur^'ed  upon  me   that    I  personally  could   not 
atTord  to  take  this  action,  for  under  no  circumstances  could 
I  ever  again  be  nominated  for  any  public  oHice,  as  no  cor- 
poration would  subscribe  to  a  campai^Mi  fund  if  I  was  on  the 
ticket,  and  that  thev  would  subscribe  most  heavily  to  beat 
me;   and  when  I  asked  if  this  were  true  of  Republican  cor- 
porations, the  cvnical  answer  was  made  that  the  corporations 
that   subscribed  most   heavily  to  the  campaign  furids  sub- 
scribed impartially  to  both  party  organizations.     Under  all 
these  circumstances,  it   seemed  to  me  there  was  no  alter- 
native but  to  do  what  I  could  to  secure  the  passage  of  the 

bill." 

These  two  letters,  written  in  the  spring  of  1S99,  express 
clearly  the  views  of  the  two  elements  of  the  Republican  party, 
whose  hostility  gradually  grew  until  it  culminated,  thirteen 
years  later.  In  1912  the  political  and  tinanclal  ft)rces  of 
which  Mr.  Piatt  had  once  been  the  spokesman,  usurped 
the  control  of  the  party  machinery  and  drove  out  of  the  party 
the  men  who  were  loyally  endeavoring  to  appl\-  the  principles 
of  the  founders  of  tl'ie  party  to  the  needs  and  issues  of  their 

own  dav. 

I  had  made  up  mv  mind  that  if  I  C(-)uld  get  a  show  in  the 
Legislature  the  bill  would  pass,  because  the  people  had  be- 
come interested  and  the  representatives  would  scarcely  dare 
to  vote  the  wn)ng  way.  Accordingly,  on  April  27,  1899,  I 
sent  a  special  message  to  the  Assembly,  certifying  that  the 


^26    'IHK()iX)RE    R()OSK\  Ki;i"      AX    AirOBIOCRAPin 


I'lncrm-iicv  dcmancU'd  tin-  iinim-uiaU'  passau'i'  <•!  tlif  bill. 
The  luachiiu-  liadors  were  l)itterl\  aiiiri\.  ami  I  Ik-  Speaker 
actually  tore  up  the  message  wit  Ik  ml  leading  it  to  the 
Assembly.  That  night  they  were  busy  trying  to  arrange 
some  device  for  the  defeat  of  the  bill  which  was  not 
difficult,  as  the  session  was  about  to  close.  At  seven  the 
next  morning  I  was  informed  of  what  had  occurred.  At 
eight  I  was  in  the  Capitol  at  the  Kxecutive  chamber,  and 
sent  in  another  special  message,  which  opened  as  follows: 
"I  learn  that  tlu-  emergency  message  which  I  sent  last 
evening  to  the  .Assembly  on  behalf  of  the  Franchise  Tax 
Bill  has  not  been  read.  I  therefore  send  hereby  another 
message  on  the  subject.  I  need  not  impress  upon  the 
Assembly  the  need  of  passing  this  bill  at  once."  I  sent  this 
message  'to  tlie  Assembly,  by  my  secretary,  William  J. 
Youngs,  afterwards  United  States  District  Attorney  of 
Kings,  with  an  intimation  that  if  this  were  not  promptly 
read  I  should  come  up  in  person  and  read  it.  Then,  as  so 
often  happens,  the  opposition  collapsed  and  the  bill  went 
through  both  houses  with  a  rush.  I  had  in  the  House  stanch 
friends,  such  as  Regis  Post  and  .Mford  Cooley,  men  of  charac- 
ter and  courage,  who  would  have  fought  to  a  finish  had  the 
need  arisen. 

My  troubles  were  not  at  an  end,  however.  The  bill  put 
the  taxation  in  the  hands  of  the  local  county  boards,  and  as 
the  railways  sometimes  passed  through  several  different 
ct)unties,  this  was  inadvisable.  It  was  the  end  of  the 
session,  and  the  Legislature  adjourned.  The  corporations 
affected,  through  various  counsel,  and  the  different  party 
leaders  of  both  organizations,  urged  me  not  to  sign  the 
bill,  laying  especial  stress  on  this  feature,  and  asking  that  I 
wait  until  the  following  year,  when  a  good  measure  could  be 
put  through  with  this  obnoxious  feature  struck  out.  I  had 
thirty  days  under  the  law  in  which  to  sign  the  bill.  If  I 
did  not  sign  it  by  the  end  of  that  time  it  would  not  become  a 
law.  I  answered  my  pt)litical  and  corporation  friends  by 
telling  them  that  I  agreed  with  them  that  this  feature  was 
wrong,  but  that  I  would  rather  have  the  bill  with  this  feature 
than  not  ha\e  it  at  all;  and  that  I  was  not  willing  to  trust 


THE   NEW   YORK  (JOVERNORSHIP 


327 


to  what  might  be  done  a  year  later.  Therefore,  I  explained, 
1  would  reconvene  the  Legislature  in  special  session,  and  if 
the  legislators  chose  to  amend  the  bill  by  placing  the  power 
of  taxation  in  the  State  instead  of  in  the  county  or  munici- 
pality, I  would  be  glad ;  but  that  if  they  failed  to  amend 
it,  or  amended  it  improperly,  I  would  sign  the  original  bill 
and  let  it  become  law  as  it  was. 

When  the  representatives  of  Mr.  Piatt  and  of  the  corpora- 
tions affected  found  the\-  could  do  no  better,  they  assented 
to  this  proposition.  Kfforts  were  tentatively  made  to  out- 
wit me,  by  inserting  amendments  that  would  nullify  the 
effect  of  the  law,  or  by  withdrawing  the  law  when  the  Legis- 
lature convened;  which  would  at  once  have  deprived  me  of 
the  whip  hand.  On  .May  12  I  wrote  Senator  Piatt,  outlining 
the  amendments  I  desired,  and  said  :  "Of  course  it  must  be 
understood  that  I  will  sign  the  present  bill  if  the  proposed 
bill  containing  the  changes  outlin.d  above  fails  to  pass." 
On  May  iH  I  no  '^ed  the  Senate  leader,  John  Raines,  by 
telegram:  "Legi;  .ture  has  no  power  to  withdraw  the 
Ford  bill.  If  attempt  is  nuul<  to  do  so,  I  will  sign  the  bill 
at  once."  On  the  same  da>-,  liy  telegram,  I  wired  Mr.  Odell 
concerning  the  bill  the  leaders  were  preparing:  "Some 
provisions  of  bill  very  objectionable.  I  am  at  work  on  bill 
to  show  you  to-morrow.  The  bill  must  not  contain  greater 
changes  than  those  outlined  in  my  message."  My  wishes 
were  heeded,  and  when  I  had  reconvened  the  Legislature 
it  amended  the  bill  as  1  outlined  in  my  message;  and  in  its 
amended  form  tlu-  bill  becan\e  law. 

There  promptly  followed  something  which  afforded  an 
index  of  the  good  faith  of  the  corporations  that  had  been 
protesting  to  me.  .\s  soon  as  the  change  for  which  they 
had  begged  was  inserted  in  the  law,  and  the  law  was  signed, 
they  turned  round  and  refused  to  pay  the  ta.xes ;  and  in  the 
lawsuit  that  followed,  they  claimed  that  the  law  was  uncon- 
stitutional, becaust-  it  contained  the  ver\-  clause  which  they 
hail  so  chmioniiislv  demanded.  Senator  David  B.  Hill  had 
.4p|ie.ireil  bffoif  me  on  bfh.ill  of  the  coipoiations  to  argue 
for  the  change;  and  he  then  appeared  before  the  courts  lo 
make  the  argument  on  the  other  side.     The  suit  was  carried 


I 

iir! 


328     rilKOnORK    R()()SK\KLT-A\    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

through  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  which 
declared  the  law  constitutional  during  the  time  that  I  was 
President. 

One  of  the  painful  duties  of  the  chief  executive  in  States 
like  New  York,  as  well  as  in  the  Nation,  is  the  refusing  of 
pardons.  Vet  I  can  imagine  nothing  more  necessary  from 
the  standpoint  of  good  citizenship  than  the  ability  to  steel 
one's  heart  in  this  matter  of  granting  pardons.  The  pressure 
is  always  greatest  in  two  classes  of  cases  :  first,  that  where 
capital  punishment  is  inflicted;  second,  that  where  the  man 
is  prominent  socially  and  in  the  business  world,  and  where  in 
consequence  his  crime  is  apt  to  have  been  one  concerned  in 
some  way  with  finance. 

As-  regards  capital  cases,  the  trouble  is  that  emotional 
men  and  women  always  see  only  the  individual  whose  fate 
is  up  at  the  moment,  and  neither  his  victim  nor  the  many 
millions  of  unknown  individuals  who  would  in  the  long  run 
be  harmed  by  what  they  ask.  Moreover,  almost  any  crimi- 
nal, however  brutal,  has  usually  some  person,  often  a  person 
whom  he  has  greatly  wronged,  who  will  plead  for  him.  If 
the  mother  is  alive  she  will  always  come,  and  she  cannot 
help  feeling  that  the  case  in  which  she  is  so  concerned  is 
peculiar,  that  in  this  case  a  pardon  should  be  granted.  It 
was  really  heartrending  to  have  to  see  the  kinsfolk  and  friends 
of  murderers  who  were  condemned  to  death,  and  among  the 
very  rare  occasions  when  anything  governmental  or  official 
caused  me  to  lose  sleep  were  the  times  when  I  had  to  listen 
to  some  pof.r  mother  making  a  plea  for  a  criminal  so  wicked, 
so  utterly  brutal  and  depraved,  that  it  would  have  been  a 
crime  on  my  part  to  remit  his  punishment. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  certain  crimes  where  re- 
quests for  leniency  merely  made  me  angry.  Such  crimes 
were,  for  instance,  rape,  or  the  circulat-on  of  indecent  litera- 
ture, or  anything  connected  with  what  would  now  be  called 
the  "white  slave"  traffic,  or  wife  murder,  or  gross  cruelty  to 
women  and  children,  or  seduction  and  abandonment,  or  the 
action  of  <<m\\k.-  man  in  iretting  ;i  jjirl  whom  he  had  seduced  to 
commit  abortion.  I  am  speaking  in  each  instance  of  cases 
that  actually  came  before  me,  either  while  I  was  Cjovernor  or 


THE   NEW   YORK  GOVERNORSHIP 


329 


while  I  was  President.  In  an  astonishing  number  of  these 
cases  men  of  high  standing  signed  petitions  or  wrote  letters 
asking  me  to  show  leniency  to  the  criminal.  In  two  or  three 
of  the  cases  —  one  where  some  young  roughs  had  committed 
rape  on  a  helpless  immigrant  girl,  and  another  in  which  a 
physician  of  wealth  and  high  standing  had  seduced  a  girl  and 
then  induced  her  to  commit  abortion  —  I  rather  lost  my 
temper,  and  wrote  to  the  individuals  who  had  asked  for  the 
pardon,  saying  that  I  extremely  regretted  that  it  was  not  in 
my  power  to  increase  the  sentence.  I  then  let  the  facts  be 
made  public,  for  I  thought  that  my  petitioners  deserved 
public  censure.  W  ether  they  received  this  public  censure 
or  not  I  did  not  kn  w,  but  that  my  action  made  them  very 
angry  I  do  know,  ai  1  their  anger  gave  me  real  satisfaction. 
The  list  of  these  pe  tioners  was  a  fairly  long  one,  and  in- 
cluded two  United  States  Senators,  a  Governor  of  a  State, 
two  judges,  an  editor,  and  some  eminent  lawyers  and  busi- 
ness men. 

In  the  class  of  cases  where  the  offense  was  one  involving 
the  misuse  of  large  sums  of  money  the  reason  for  the  pressure 
was  different.  Cases  of  this  kind  more  frequently  came 
before  me  when  I  was  President,  but  they  also  came  before 
me  wh'.'ii  I  was  Governor,  chiefly  in  the  cases  of  county 
treasurers  who  had  embezzled  funds.  A  big  bank  president, 
a  railway  magnate,  an  official  connected  with  some  big 
corporation,  or  a  Government  official  in  a  responsible  fiduci- 
ary position,  necessarily  belongs  among  the  men  who  have 
succeeded  in  life.  This  means  that  his  family  are  living  in 
comfort,  and  perhaps  luxury  and  refinement,  and  that  his 
sons  and  daughters  have  been  well  educated.  In  such  a  case 
the  misdeed  of  the  father  comes  as  a  crushing  disaster  to  the 
wife  and  children,  and  the  people  of  the  community,  however 
bitter  originally  against  the  man,  grow  to  feel  the  most 
intense  sympathy  for  the  bowed-down  women  and  children 
who  suflPer  for  the  man's  fault.  It  is  a  dreadful  thiiig  iii  life 
that  so  much  of  atonement  for  wrong-doing  is  vicarious. 
If  it  were  possible  in  such  a  case  to  tiiink  only  of  the  banker's 
or  county  treasurer's  wife  and  children,  any  man  would 
pardon  the  offender  at  once.     Unfortunately,  it  is  not  right 


ill 


:m 


■if 


3.?o     IHEODORE    ROOSEVELT   -  AN    ALTOBIOCRAPHV 


to  think  only  of  the  women  and  children.  The  very  fact 
that  in  cpses  of  this  class  there  is  certain  to  be  pressure  from 
high  sources,  pressure  sometimes  by  men  who  have  been 
beneficially,  even  though  remotely,  interested  in  the  man's 
criminality,  no  less  than  pressure  because  of  honest  sympathy 
with  the  wife  and  children,  makes  it  necessary  that  the 
good  public  servant  shall,  no  matter  how  deep  his  sympathy 
and  regret,  steel  his  heart  and  do  his  duly  by  refusing  to  let 
the  wrong-doer  out.  My  experience  of  the  way  in  which 
pardons  are  often  g. anted  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  do  nv)t 
believe  that  life  imprisonment  for  murder  and  rape  is  a 
proper  substitute  for  the  death  penalty.  The  average  term  of 
so-called  life  imprisonment  in  this  country  is  only  about 
fourteen  jears. 

Of  course  there  were  cases  where  '  either  commuted  sen- 
tences or  pardoned  ofFeHvi'-rs  witli  \ery  real  pleasure.  For 
instance,  when  President,  (  frequently  commuted  sentences 
for  horse  stealing  in  the  Indian  Territor\-  because  the  penalty 
for  stealing  a  horse  was  disproportionate  to  the  penalty  for 
ma;  \  other  crimes,  and  the  offense  was  usually  committed 
by  ..ome  ignorant  young  fellow  who  found  a  half-wild  horse, 
;'nd  really  did  not  commit  anything  like  as  serious  an 
offense  as  the  penalty  indicated.  The  judges  would  be 
obliged  to  give  the  minimum  penalty,  but  would  forward 
me  memoranda  stating  that  if  there  had  been  a  less  penalty 
they  would  have  inflicted  it.  and  I  would  then  commute 
the  sentence  to  the  penalty  thus  indicated. 

In  one  case  in  New  ^'ork  I  pardoned  outright  a  man  con- 
victed of  murder  in  the  second  degree,  and  I  did  this  on  the 
recommendation  of  a  friend,  P'ather  Doyle  of  the  Paulist 
Fathers.  I  had  become  intimate  with  the  Paulist  Fathers 
while  I  was  Police  Commissioner,  and  I  had  grown  to  feel 
confidence  in  their  judgment,  for  I  had  found  that  they  al- 
ways told  me  exactly  what  the  facts  were  about  any  man, 
whether  he  belonged  to  their  church  or  not.  Tn  this  case  the 
convicted  man  was  a  strongl)'  built,  respectable  old  Irish- 
man employed  a-^  a  watchman  around  simu-  bij.'  cattle-killing 
establishments.  The  young  roughs  of  the  neighborhood, 
u  hich  was  then  of  a  rati;er  lawless  type,  used  to  try  to  destroy 


rilK   NEW    VORK.  GOVERNORSHIP 


33 » 


tlu-  |in>iHTl\  of  till' rompaiiics.  In  a  coiiHict  uilli  a  uatcii- 
man  a  iiKinlxr  ol  one  of  tlu'  ganj^s  was  slain.  Tlic  watchman 
was  aiquittc'il,  l)ut  llic  niiglihorliood  was  njutli  wrought  up 
over  the  acquittal.  Sliorlly  afterwards,  a  gang  of  the  same 
roughs  attacked  another  watchman,  the  old  Irishman  in 
question,  and  finally,  to  save 


Ills  own  life,  he  was  obliged 
in  self-defense  to  kill  one  of 
his  assailants.  The  feeling 
in  tile  community,  however, 
was  slrongl}-  against  him. 
and  some  of  the  men  high  uj-* 
in  the  corporation  became 
frightened  and  thought  that 
it  would  be  better  to  throw- 
over  the  watchman.  He  was 
convicted.  Father  Doyle 
came  to  me,  told  me  that 
he  knew  the  man  well,  thai 
he  was  one  of  the  best  mem- 
bers of  his  church,  admi- 
rable in  every  way,  that  he 
had  simplx'  been  forced  to 
fight  for  his  life  while  lo\  ally 
doing  his  duty,  and  that 
the  conviction  represented 
the  triumph  of  tlie  tough 
element  of  the  district  and 
the  abandonment  of  this 
man,  by  those  who  should 
have  stood  by  him,  under  the  influence  of  an  unworthy 
fear.  I  looked  into  the  case,  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
Father  Doyle  was  right,  and  gave  the  man  a  full  pardon 
before  he  had  served  thirty  days. 

The  various  clashes  between  myself  and  the  machine, 
my  triumph  in  them,  and  the  fact  that  the  people  were 
getting  more  and  more  interested  and  aroused,  brought  on  a 
curious  situation  in  the  Republican  National  Convention  at 
F*hiladelphia   in   June,    1900.     Senator   Piatt   and   the   New 


l-Min  R  l).i\it   "K  riu;  I'.vn.isr  I'athfks 

'  1  had  heoime  very  iniimate  with  the  Paulist 
TalhtTs  while  I  wa>  I'oliic  Ci>mmissii)ncr." 


ft 


332    THEODORK    ROOSEVKLT-AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


ilS#* 


■^'ork  machiiK'  leaders  liad  bcconu'  very  anxious  to  get  ine 
out  of  the  Governorship,  chiefly  because  of  the  hostility  of 
the  big  corporation  men  towards  me;  but  they  had  also 
become  convinced  that  there  was  such  popular  feeling  on  my 
behalf  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  refuse  me  a  renomination 
if  I  demanded  it.  They  accordingly  decided  to  push  me  for 
Vice-President,  taking  advantage  of  the  fact  that  there  was 
at  that  time  a  good  deal  of  feeling  for  me  in  the  country  at 
large.'  I  myself  did  not  appreciate  that  there  was  any  such 
feeling,  and  as  I  greatly  disliked  the  office  of  Xice-President 
and  was  much  interested  in  the  Governorship,  I  announced 
that  I  would  not  accept  the  Vice-Presidency.  I  was  one 
of  the  delegates  to  Philadelphia.  On  reaching  there  I 
found  that  the  situation  was  complicated.  Senator  Hanna 
appeared  on  the  surface  to  have  control  of  the  Convention. 
He  was  anxious  that  1  should  not  be  nominated  as  Vice- 
President.  Senator  Piatt  was  anxious  that  I  should  be 
nominated  as  V'ice-Presidoni,  in  order  to  get  me  out  of  the 
New  York  Governorship.  Each  took  a  position  opposite 
to  that  of  the  other,  but  each  at  that  time  cordially  sympa- 
thized with  the  other's  feelings  about  me  —  it  was  the  mani- 
festations and  not  the  feelings  that  differed.  My  sup- 
porters in  New  York  State  did  not  wish  me  nominated  for 
Vice-President  because  they  wished  me  to  continue  as  Gov- 
ernor ;  but  in  every  other  State  all  the  people  who  admired 
mt  were  bound  that  I  should  be  nominated  as  Vice-President. 
These  people  were  almost  all  desirous  of  seeing  Mr.  McKin- 
ley  renominated  as  President,  but  they  became  angry  at 
Senator  Hanna's  opposition  to  me  as  Vice-President. 
He  in  his  turn  suddenly  became  aware  that  if  he  persisted 
he  might  find  that  in  their  anger  these  men  would  oppose 
Mr.  McKinley's  renomination,  and  although  they  could 
not  have  prevented  the  nomination,  such  opposition  would 
have  been  a  serious  blow  in  the  campaign  which  was  to 
follow.     Senator  Hanna,  therefore,  began  to  waver. 

Meanwhile  a  meeting  of  the  New  York  delegation  was 
called.  Most  of  the  delegates  were  under  the  control  of 
Senator  Piatt.     The  Senator  notified  me  that  if  I  refused  to 

'  See  Appendix  B  to  this  chapter. 


THE  NEW   YORK  GOVERNORSHIP 


333 


accept  the  nomination  for  Vice-President  I  would  be  beaten 
for  the  nomination  for  Governor.  I  answered  that  I  would 
accept  the  challenge,  that  we  would  have  a  straight-out 
fight  on  the  proposition,  and  that  I  would  begin  it  at  once 
by  telling  the  assembled  delegates  of  the  threat,  and  giving 
fair  warning  that  I  intended  to  fight  for  the  Governorship 
nomination,  and,  moreover,  that  I  intended  to  get  it.  This 
brought  Senator  Piatt  to  terms.  The  effort  to  instruct  the 
New  York  delegation  for  me  was  abandoned,  and  Lieutenant- 
Governor  VVoodruflF  was  presented  for  nomination  in  my  place. 

I  supposed  that  this  closed  the  incident,  and  that  no 
further  effort  would  be  made  to  nominate  me  for  the  V^ice- 
Prcsidency.  On  the  contrary,  the  effect  was  directly  the  re- 
verse. The  upset  of  the  New  York  machine  increased  the 
feeling  of  the  delegates  from  other  States  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  draft  me  for  the  nomination.  By  next  day  Senator 
Hanna  himself  concluded  that  this  was  a  necessity,  and 
acquiesced  in  the  movement.  As  New  York  was  already 
committed  against  me,  and  as  I  was  not  willing  that  there 
should  be  any  chance  of  supposing  that  the  New  Yorkers 
had  nominated  me  to  get  rid  of  me,  the  result  was  that  I  was 
nominated  and  seconded  from  outside  States.  No  other 
candidate  was  placed  in  the  field.  ^ 

By  this  time  the  Legislature  had  adjourned,  and  most  of 
my  work  as  Governor  of  New  York  was  over.  One  unex- 
pected bit  of  business  arose,  however.  It  was  the  year  of  the 
Presidential  campaign.  Tammany,  which  had  been  luke- 
warm about  Bryan  in  1896,  cordially  supported  him  in  igcx); 
and  when  Tammany  heartily  supports  a  candidate  it  is  well 
for  the  opposing  candidate  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  elec- 
tion frauds.  The  city  government  was  in  the  hands  of 
TSmmany ;  but  I  had  power  to  remove  the  Mayor,  the 
Sheriff,  and  the  District  Attorney  for  malfeasance  or  mis- 
feasance in  office.  Such  power  had  not  been  exercised  by 
any  previous  Governor,  as  far  as  I  knew;  but  it  existed,  and 
if  the  misfeasance  or  malfeasance  warranted  it,  and  if  the 
Governor  possessed  the  requisite  determination,  the  power 
could  be,  and  ought  to  be,  exercised. 

By  an  Act  of  the  Legislature,  a  State  Bureau  of  Elections 


'i- 


'n 


if.!  <■ 
il'i 


1^ 


334 


THEODORK    R(H)SK\  Kl/I  -  AN    Al  TOBIOCIRAPHY 


had  been  created  in  New  York  City,  and  a  Superintendent  of 
Elections  appointed  by  the  (jovernor.  The  Chief  of  the 
State  Bureau  of  Elections  was  John  McCullagh,  formerly  in 
the  Police  Department  when  I  was  Police  Commissioner. 
The  Chief  of  Police  for  the  city  was  William  V.  Devery,  one 
of  the  Tammany  leaders,  who  represented  in  the  Police 
Department  all  that  I  had  warred  against  while  Commis- 
sioner. On  November  4  Devery  directed  his  subordinates  in 
the  Police  Department  to  disregard  the  orders  which  Mc- 
Cullagh had  given  to  his  deputies,  orders  which  were  essen- 
tial if  we  were  to  secure  an  honest  election  in  the  city. 
I  had  just  returned  from  a  Western  campaign  trip,  and  was 
at  Sagamore  Hill.  I  had  no  direct  power  over  Devery ; 
but  the  Mayor  had;  and  I  had  power  over  the  Mayor. 
Accordingly,  I  at  once  wrote  to  the  Mayor  of  New  ^  ork,  lo 
the  Sheriff  of  New  York,  and  to  the  District  Attorney  of 
New  York  County  the  following  letters  : 


STATE    OF    NEW    YORK 

Oyster  Bay,  November  5,  1900. 

To  the  Mayor  of  the  City  of  NfW  York. 

Sir:  My  attention  has  been  called  to  the  official  order 
issued  by  Chief  of  Police  Devery,  in  which  he  directs  his 
subordinates  to  disregard  the  CJiief  of  the  State  Election 
Bureau,  John  McCullagh,  and  his  deputies.  Unless  you 
have  already  taken  steps  to  secure  the  recall  of  this  order, 
it  is  necessary  for  me  to  point  out  that  I  shall  be  obliged 
to  hold  you  responsible  as  the  head  of  the  city  government 
for  the  action  of  the  Chief  of  Police,  if  it  should  result  in 
any  breach  of  the  peace  and  intimidation  or  any  crime  what- 
ever against  the  election  laws.  T'.f  State  and  city  au- 
thorities should  work  together.  1  will  not  fail  to  call  to  sum- 
mary account  either  State  or  city  authority  in  the  event 
of  either  being  guiltv  of  intimidation  or  connivance  at  fraud 
or  of  failure  to  pro'tect  everv  leeal  voter  in  his  rights.  1 
therefore  hereb  lotify  you  that  in  the  event  of  any  wrong- 
doing following  upon  the  failure  immediately  to  recall  Chiet 


THK 

\K\V   YORK 

1 
GOVKRXORSHIP               335 

I)f\CIJ 

..I'  Chii 

•'s  order, 
•f  Dcvcry 

or  upon  any  action  or  inaction  on  llic  pari 
,  1  must  ncccssaril)  rail  \  ou  to  accounl. 

^ Ours,  ct 

'I'liKoDoRE  Roosevelt. 

STATE    OF 

NEW    YORK 

Oyster  Bay,  November  5,  1900. 

To  the 

Sheriff  oj 

the  County  oj 

AVff  York. 

Sir :  My  attention  has  Ixcn  called  to  the  official  order 
issued  by  Chief  of  Police  Devery  in  which  he  directs  his 
subordinates  to  disregard  the  Chief  of  the  State  Election 
Bureau,  John  McCullagh,  and  his  deputies. 

It  is  your  duty  to  assist  in  the  orderly  enforcement  of  the 
law,  and  I  shall  hold  you  strictly  responsible  for  any  breach 
of  the  public  peace  within  your  county,  or  for  any  failure  on 
your  part  to  do  your  full  duty  in  connection  with  the  election 
to-morrow.  ^'ours  truly, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 


STATE    OF    NEW    YORK 

Oyster  Bay,  November  5,  1900. 

To  the  District  Attorney  of  the  County  of  New  York. 

Sir :  My  attention  has  been  called  to  the  official  order 
issued  by  Chief  of  Police  Devery,  in  which  he  directs  his 
subordinates  to  disregard  the  Chief  of  the  State  Election 
Bureau,  John  McCullagh,  and  his  deputies. 

In  view  of  this  order  I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  your  duty  to  assist  in  the  orderly  enforcement  of  the 
law,  and  there  must  be  no  failure  on  your  part  to  do  your 
.full  duty  in  the  matter.  Y'ours  truly, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

These  letters  had  the  desired  effect.  The  Mayor  promptly 
required  Chief  Devery  to  rescind  the  obnoxious  order,  which 
was    as   promptly   done.     The    Sheriff   also   took    prompt 


I,:  J 

M 
.'a[ 


!! 


il: 


'    f 


336    THKODORK    R(K)SK\  Kl.T      AN    Al  TOBKKIRAI'IIV 

action.     The  District  Attorney  refused  to  heed  my  letter 
and  assumed  an  attitude  of  defiance,  and  I  removed  h.  n 
from  office.     ( )n  election  day  t  hen-  was  no  clash  between  the 
city  and  Slate  authorities;    the  election  was  orderly  and 
honest. 


APPENDIX  A 


CONSKRXA'IION 

As  foreshadowing  the  >urse  I  later,  as  President,  followed  in 
this  matter,  1  jfive  extracts  from  one  of  my  letters  to  the  Commis- 
sion, and  from  my  second  land  last)  Annual  Message.  I  spent  the 
first  months  of  my  term  in  investigations  to  find  out  just  what  the 
situation  was. 

On  November  2S,  iSw,  I  wrote  to  the  Commission  as  follows: 

",  .  .  I  have  id  very  many  complaints  before  this  as  to  the 
inefliciencv  of  the  game 'wardens  and  game  protectors,  the  com- 
plaints usiiallv  taking  the  form  that  the  men  have  been  appointed 
and  arc  retained  without  due  regard  to  the  duties  to  be  performed. 
I  do  not  wish  a  man  to  be  retained  or  appointed  who  is  not  thor- 
oughlv  fit  to  perform  the  duties  of  game  protector.  The  .\diron- 
dacks'  are  entitled  to  a  peculiar  share  of  the  Commission's 
attention,  both  from  the  standpoint  of  forestry,  and  from  the  less 
important,  but  t'll  very  important,  standpoint  of  game  and  fish 
protection.  The  men  who  do  duty  as  game  protectors  lu  the 
Adirondacks  should,  bv  preference,  be  appointed  from  the  locality 
itself,  and  should  in  all'  cases  be  thorough  woodsmen.  The  mere 
fact  that  a  game  protector  has  to  hire  a  guide  to  pilot  hiit)  through 
the  woods  is  enough  to  show  his  unfitness  for  the  position.  I  want 
as  game  protectors  men  of  courage,  resolution,  and  hardihood, 
who  can  handle  the  rifle,  ax,  anu  paddle ;  who  can  camp  out  in 
summer  or  winter;  who  can  go  on  snow-shoes,  if  necessary;  who 
can  go  through  the  woods  by  day  or  by  night  without  regard  to 
trails. 

"I  should  like  full  information  about  all  your  employees,  as  lo 
their  capacities,  as  to  the  labor  they  perform,  as  to  their  disti 
bution  from  and  where  they  do  their  work." 

Manv  of  the  men  hitherto  appointed  owed  their  positions  pnn- 

cipallv'to  political  preference.     The  changes  I  recommended  were 

promptly  made,  and  much  t..  the  good  of  the  public  ser^  ice.     In 

my  Annual  Message,  in  January,  1900,  I  said  :  1     •      • 

"Cjrcat  progress  has  been  made  through  the  fish  lialchenes  m 

I  337 


it- 


ill 


it 


338     IIIKODORK    R(K)SI<;\  KLI' -  AN    ALi'OBUXiRAl'IlV 

the-  pi(ipai;ati<>n  <>f  valuable  fixxJ  and  sporting  fish.  The  laws  for 
ihi-  protfctioii  t)f  deer  have  resulted  in  their  increase.  Neverthe- 
less, as  railroads  tend  lo  encroach  ort  the  \vililernes>,  the  tempta- 
tion to  illepal  hunting  becomes  greater,  and  the  dan^ter  frotu  forest 
tires  increases.  I'here  is  need  of  jjreat  improvement  both  in  our 
laws  and  in  their  administration.  'I'he  ^tatne  wardens  have  been 
too  few  in  number.  More  should  be  provided.  None  save  fit 
men  must  be  appointed ;  and  ihcir  retention  in  office  munt  depend 
purelv  upon  the  zeal,  ability,  and  efficiency  with  which  they  per- 
form their  duties.  The  ftamc  wardens  in  the  forests  must  be  wtwds- 
mcn;  and  they  should  have  no  outside  business.  In  short,  there 
should  be  a  thorough  reorganization  of  the  work  of  the  Commis- 
sion. A  careful  study  of  the  resources  and  condition  of  the  forests 
on  State  land  must  be  made.  It  is  certainly  not  too  much  to 
expect  that  the  State  forests  should  be  managed  as  efficiently  as 
the  forests  on  private  lands  in  the  same  neighborhoods.  And  the 
measure  of  difference  in  efficiency  of  management  must  be  the 
measure  of  condemnation  or  praise  of  the  way  the  public  forests 
have  been  managed. 

"The  subject  of  forest  preservation  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
to  the  State.  The  Adirondacks  and  Catskills  should  be  great 
parks  kept  in  perpetuity  for  the  benefit  and  enjoyment  of  our 
people.  Much  has  been  done  of  late  years  towards  their  perserva- 
tion,  but  very  much  remains  to  be  done.  The  provisions  of  law  \n 
reference  to  sawmills  and  wood-pulp  mills  are  defective  and  should 
be  changed  so  as  to  prohibit  dumping  dye-stuff,  sawdust,  or  tan- 
bark,  in  any  amount  whatsoever,  into  the  streams.  Reservoirs 
should  be  made,  but  not  where  '>2y  will  tend  to  destroy  large 
sections  of  the  forest,  and  only  after  a  careful  and  scientific  study 
of  the  water  resources  of  the  region.  The  people  of  the  forest 
regions  are  themselves  growing  more  and  more  to  realize  the  neces- 
sity of  preserving  both  the  trees  and  the  game.  A  live  deer  in  the 
woods  will  attract  to  the  neighborhood  ten  times  the  money  that 
could  be  obtained  for  the  deer's  dead  carcass.  Timber  theft  on 
the  State  lands  is,  of  course,  a  grave  offense  against  the  whole 
public.  .  f 

"Hardy  outdoor  sports,  like  hunting,  are  m  themselves  ot  no 
small  value  to  the  National  character  and  should  be  encouraged 
in  every  way.  Men  who  go  into  the  wilderness,  indeed,  men  who 
take  part  in  any  field  sports  with  horse  or  rifle,  receive  a  benefit 
which  can  hardly  be  given  by  even  the    most   vigorous   athletic 

games.  •     i       j  • 

"There  is  a  further  and  more  immediate  and  practical  end  m 


APPENDIX 


339 


view.  A  primeval  forest  is  a  great  sponge  which  absorbs  and 
distills  the  rain  water.  And  when  it  is  destroyed  the  result  is 
apt  to  be  an  alternation  of  flood  and  drought.  Forest  fires  ulti- 
mately make  the  land  a  desert,  and  are  a  detriment  to  all  that  por- 
tion of  the  State  tributary  to  the  streams  through  the  woods  where 
they  occur.  Kvery  effort  should  be  made  to  minimize  their 
destructive  influence.  We  need  to  have  our  system  of  forestry 
gradually  developed  and  conducted  along  scientific  principles. 
When  this  has  been  done  it  will  be  possible  to  allow  marketable 
lumber  to  be  cut  everywhere  wit'  it  damage  to  the  forests  — 
indeed,  with  positive  advantage  mci  >  But  until  lumbering  is 
thus  conducted,  on  strictly  sri<  im-  princi'^'""'  no  less  than  upon 
principles  of  the  strictest   he     s'      ri».U:0    .'wf       ate,  we  cannot 


afford  to  suffer  it  at  all  in  t   ■ 
means  the  ruin  of  the  grea» 
of  the  rivers. 

"I'ltimately  the  admi  .1  t  ,.  1 
centralized  as  to  enabli     .     uc 
respect  to  everything  co  cv'  I'n 
degree  of  trained  intelligen  <•  in 

"The  State  should  not  pen  iit 
bird  skins  or  bird  feathers  inti 
apparel.     Ordinary    birds,    and 


nt!    hi 


t_>  I'l^' 


^strained  greed 
of  the  sources 


•i'..' 
he: 

'fir  i'^'v 
i_,,i  1  it 


iHit 


■js  must  be  so 
•sponsibility  in 
)  Uf  ■  'and  the  highest 


's  factories  to  make 
rn   ment  or  wearing 
birds,  should  be 


0^  •  ,ly 
rigidly  protected.  Ciame  birds  should  never  be  shot  to  a  greater 
extent  than  will  offset  the  natural  rate  of  increase.  .  .  .  Care 
should  be  taken  not  to  encourage  the  use  of  cold  storage  or  other 
market  systems  which  are  a  benefit  to  no  one  but'the  wealthy 
epicure  who  can  afford  to  pay  a  heavy  price  for  luxuries.  These 
systems  tend  to  the  destruction  of  the  game,  which  would  bear 
most  severely  upon  the  very  men  whose  rapacity  has  been  appealed 
to  in  order  to  secure  its  extermination.  .  .  ." 

I  reorganized  the  Commission,  putting  Austin  \\  adsworih  at  its 
head. 


APPENDIX   B 

THE   POLITICAL  SITUATION    IN    19c 

My  general  scheme  of  action  as  (lovernor  was  given  n  a  letter  I 
wrote  one  of  my  supporters  among  the  independent  district  organ- 
ization leaders,  Norton  Goddard,  on  April  16,  k/X).  It  runs  in 
part  as  follows:    "Nobody  can  tell,  and  least  of  all  the  machine 


\m 


340 


THliODORK    ROOSia  ELT  -  AN    AL  TOBlOdRAPHV 


itself,  whether  the  machine  intends  to  renominate  me  next  fall  or 
not.     If  for  some  reason  I  should  be  weak,  whether  on  account  of 
faults  or  virtues,  doubtless  the  machine  will  throw  me  over,  an 
I  think  1  am  not  uncharitable  when  I  say  they  would  feel  no  acute 
Uricf  at  so  doinjr.     It  would  be  very  strange  if  they  did  feel  such 
jrrief.      If,  for  instance,  we  had  strikes  which  led  to  riots,  i  would 
of  course  be  oblijred  to  preserve  order  and  stop  the  riots.     Decent 
citizens  would  demand  that  1  should  do  it,  and  in   any  event  I 
should  do  it  wholly  without  regard  to  their  demands.     But,  once 
it  was  done,  they  would  forpet  all  abf)Ut  it,  while  a  jrrcat  many 
laborinji  men,  honest  but  ignorant  ami  prejudiced,  would  bear  a 
>rrud>;e  against  me  for  doinjr  it.     This  mijrht  put  me  out  of  the  run- 
ning as  a  candidate.     -Again,  the  big  corporations  undoubtedly  want 
to  beat  me.     They  prefer  the  chance  of  being  blackmailed  Kj  the 
certainty  that  they  will  not  be  allowed  any  more  than  their  due. 
Of  course  they  will  try  to  beat  me  on  some  entirely  different  issue, 
and,  as  thev  are  very  able  and  very  unscrupulous,  nobody  can  tell 
that  thev  vvon't  succeed.  ...     I  have  been  trying  to  stay  in  with 
the  organization.      I  did  not  do  it  with  the  idea  that  they  would 
renominate  me.     I  did  it  with  the  idea  of  getting  things  done,  and 
in  that  I  have  been  absolutely  successful.     \\  hether  Senator  I'latt 
and  .\Ir.  Odell  endeavor  to  beat  me,  or  do  beat  me,  for  the  renomi- 
riation  next  fall,  is  of  very  small  importance  compared  to  the  fact 
that  for  my  two  years  1  have  been  able  to  make  a  Republican  ma- 
jority in  tile  Legislature  do  good  and  decent  work  and  have  pre- 
vented any  split  within  the   party.     '!"he   task   was  one  of  great 
difficulty,  b1>cause,  on  the  one  hand,  I  had  to  keep  clearly  before 
me  the  fact  that  it  was  belter  to  have  a  split  than  to  permit  had 
work  to  be  done,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  to  have  that 
split  would  absolutely  prevent  all  good  work.     The  result  has  been 
that  I  have  avoided  a  split  and  that  as  a  net  result  of  my  two  years 
and  the  two  sessions  of  the  Legislature,  there  has  been  an  enormous 
improvement  in  the  administration  of  the  (lovernment,  and  there 
has  also  been  a  great  advance  in  legislation." 

'I'o  show  mv  reading  of  the  situation  at  the  time  1  quote  from  a 
letter  of  mine' to  Joseph  B.  Bishop,  then  editor  of  the  Cowmenial 
Advertiser,  with  whom  towards  the  end  of  my  term  1  had  grown 
into  very  close  relations,  and  who,  together  with  two  other  old 
friend.s,  Albert  Shaw,  of  the  Re:'if:r  of  Rrrieus,  and  Silas  .Mc- 
Bce,  now  editor  of  the  Constructive  (jitarlerly,  kuvw  the  inside 
of  every  movement,  so  far  as  I  knew  it  myself.  The  letter,  which 
is  dated  April  ll,  u>oo,  runs  in  part  as  follows:  "The  dangerous 
element  as  far  as  1  am  concerned  comes  from  the  corporations. 


API'KNDIX 


34» 


Tlu-  liiamiii^r  iiTlaiii  nun|  in.wd  ami  thosi-  like  tlirm  liavt-  been 
^Tcatly  ixasiHiatid  l>\  llir  franchise  ta.x.  'riifv  wunl.l  like  lo  get 
me  out  of  politics  for  irood.  Inii  at  the  inoment  they  think  the  best 
thin^'  I"  ^1"  i^  '"  P"'  '"^'  '"'"  *'''■  \  ict>-''residency.  Naturally  I 
will  not  be  opposed  oin-nlv  on  the  ground  of  the  corporations 
grievance;  but  every  kind  of  false  statement  will  continually  be 
made,  and  men  like  [naming'  the  editors  of  certain  newspapers] 
will  attack  me,  not  as  the  enemy  of  corporations,  but  as  their 
tool  I      I'here  is  no  question  whatever  that  if  the  leaders  can  they 

will  upset  me."  „      .  ,  i  •  i 

One  position  which  as  (Governor  (and  as  President)  1  consisteiUly 
look  seeins  tome  to  represent  what  oujjhttobea  fundamental  principle 
in  American  le>;islati\  e  work.      1  steadfastly  refused  to  advocate  any 
law,  no  matter  how  admirable  in  theory,  if  there  was  pood  reason  to 
believe  that  in  practice  it  would  not  be  executed.    I  have  always  sym- 
pathi/.ed  with  the  view  set  forthbyPelatiah  Websterm  I7«.V-quf>tfd 
bv  ilannis  Tavlur  in  his  Grnrsis  (/  ihe  Suprt-me  Court      "*  Laws  or 
ordinances  of  anv  kind  (especially  of  august  bodies  nf  high  digimy 
and  cf)nse(iuence>   which  fail   of  execution,  are  much  worse  than 
none,    'lluv  weaken  the  j;overnmenl,  expose  it  to  contempt,  destroy 
the  confidence  of  all   men,  native  and  forei>;ners.  in  it,  and  expose 
both  agjire^'ate  bodies  and  individuals  who  have  placed  conhdence 
in  it  to  manv  ruinous  disappointments  which  they  w'  uld  have  es- 
caped had  no  such  law  or  ordinance  been  made."     'I'his  pnncip  e. 
by  the  wav,  not  onl\  applies  to  an  internal   law  which  cannot  be 
executed;' it   applies  even  more  to  international  action,  such  as  a 
universal  arbitration   treatv  which  cannot   and  will   not   be  kept  ; 
and   most   of  all  it    applies  to  proposals  to  make  such  universal 
arbitration  treaties  at  the  very  time  that  we  are  not    keepmp  our 
solemn  prtmiise  to  execute  limited  arbitration  treaties  which  we  have 
alread\    made.      .\  ireneral  arbitration  treaty  is  merely  a  promise: 
it  represents  merelv  a  debt  of  hom.rable  oblii;ation  :  and  nothing' 
is  more  discreditable,  for  a  nation  or  an  individual,  than  to  cover  up 
the  repudiation  of  a  debt  which  can  be  and  ou^'ht  to  be  paid,  by 
recklessly   promisinp  to  incur  a  new  and  insecure  debt   which  no 
wise  man  for  one  moment  supposes  ever  will  be  paid. 


CHAPTER  IX 


Ol^TDOORS    AND    INDOORS 


THKRF.  arc  men  who  love  out-of-doors  who  yet  never 
open  a  book  ;  and  other  men  who  love  books  but  to 
whom  tlie  great  book  of  nature  is  a  sealed  volume, 
and  the  lines  written  therein  blurred  and  illegible. 
Nevertheless  among  those  men  whom  I  have  known  the 
love  of  books  and  the  love  of  outdoors,  in  their  highest  ex- 
pressions, have  usually  gone  hand  in  hand.  It  is  an  affecta- 
tion for  the  man  who  is  praising  outdoors  to  sneer  at  books. 
I  sually  the  keenest  appreciation  of  what  is  seen  in  nature  is 
to  be  found  in  those  who  have  also  profited  by  the  hoarded 
and  recorded  wisdom  of  their  fellow-men.  Love  of  outdcwr 
life,  l(>\e  of  simple  and  hardy  pastimes,  can  be  grat-fied  by 
men  and  women  who  do  not  possess  large  means,  and  who 
work  hard;  and  so  can  love  of  good  books  not  of  good 
bindings  and  of  first  editions,  excellent  enough  in  their  way 
but  sheer  luxuries  I  mean  love  of  reading  books,  owning 
them  if  possible  of  course,  but,  if  that  is  not  ptjssible,  getting 
them  from  a  circulating  librar\-. 

Sagamore  Hill  takes  its  name  from  the  old  Sagamore 
Mohaiinis,  who,  as  chief  of  his  little  tribe,  signed  away  his 
rights  to  the  land  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago.  The  house 
stands  right  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  separated  by  fields  and 
belts  of  woodland  from  all  other  houses,  and  looks  out  over 
the  bay  and  the  Sound.  \Vc  sec  the  sun  go  down  beyond 
long  reaches  of  land  and  of  water.  Many  birds  dwell  in 
the  trees  round  the  house  or  in  the  pastures  and  the  woods 
near  by,  and  of  course  in  winter  gulls,  loons,  and  wild  fowl 
frequent  the  waters  of  the  bay  and  the  Sound.  We  love  all 
the  seasons;  the  snows  and  bare  woods  of  winter;  the  rush 
of  growing  things  and   the  blos.som-spray  of  spring;    the 

342 


OUTDOORS  AND   INDOORS 


343 


yellow  grain,  the  ripening  fruits  and  tasselcd  corn,  and  the 
deep,  leafy  shades  that  are  heralded  by  "the  green  dance  of 
summer";  and  the  sharp  fall  winds  that  tear  the  brilliant 
banners  with  which  the  trees  greet  the  dying  year. 

The  Sound  is  always  lovely.     In  the  summer  nights  we 
watch  it  from  the  piazza,  and  see  the  lights  of  the  ♦^all  Fall 


t'uiiyricbt  by  K.  •■»  lurila 


SAUAMURt  Hill. 


River  boats  as  they  steam  steadily  by.  Now  and  then  we 
spend  a  dav  on  it,  the  two  of  us  together  in  the  light  rowing 
skiiT,  or  perhaps  with  one  of  the  boys  to  pull  an  extra  pair 
of  oars;  we  land  for  lunch  at  noon  under  wind-beaten  oaks 
on  the  edge  of  a  low  bluff,  or  among  the  wild  plum  bushes  on 
a  spit  of  white  sand,  while  the  sails  of  the  coasting  schooners 
gleam  in  the  sunlight,  and  the  tolling  of  the  bell-buoy  comes 
landward  across  the  waters. 

Long  Island  is  not  as  rich  in  Hower;.  as  the  \alle_\   ol  the 
Hudson.     Vet  there  are  manv.     Early  in  April  tlure  is  one 


Hf 


'I'lii  iiKiiKP    Ki"istMLi  IN  WiMiK  Kidim;  lii^nui 


OUTDOORS   AND   INDOORS 


345 


hUiside  near  us  which  glows  like  a  tcndfr  flanic  with  the  white 
of  the  bloodroot.  About  the  same  time  we  find  the  shy  may- 
flower,  the  trailing  arbutus ;  and  although  we  rarely  pick 
wild  flowers,  one  member  of  the  household  always  plucks  a 
littk-  bunch  of  inayflowers  to  send  to  a  friend  working  in 
Panama,  whose  soul  hungers  for  the  Northern  spring.  Then 
there  are  shadblow  and  delicate  anemones,  about  the  time  of 
the  cherr\  blossoms;  the  brief  glory  of  the  apple  orchards 
follows;  and  tln-n  the  thronging  dogwoods  fill  the  forests 
with  their  radiance;  and  so  flowers  follow  flowers  until  the 
springtime  splendor  closes  with  the  laurel  and  the  evanescent, 
honey-sweet  Incust  bloom.  The  late  summer  flowers  follow, 
the  flaunting  lilies,  and  cardinal  flowers,  and  marshmallows, 
and  pale  beach  n>semar\-  ;  and  the  gokienrod  and  the  asters 
when  the  afternoons  shorten  and  we  again  begin  to  think  of 
fires  in  tin-  wide  fireplaces. 

Mo^t  of  the  birds  in  our  neighborhood  are  the  ordinary 
home  friends  of  the  house  and  the  barn,  the  wood  lot  and  the 
pasture;  but  u'.w  and  tluii  the  species  make  queer  shifts. 
The  cheer\  quail,  alas  I  are  rareh  found  near  us  now;  and 
we  no  longer  hear  tlie  whip-poor-wills  at  night.  But  some 
bird-i  \  isit  us  now  which  tornu-rly  did  not.  When  I  was  a 
bo\  ni-ither  the  bhick-throated  green  warblir  n(ii  the  purple 
finch  nested  around  u^~,  nor  weri'  bobiilinks  found  in  our 
fields.  The  black-tliroatetl  griiii  warbler  is  now  one  of  our 
commonest  summer  warblers;  there  are  jilenty  ol  purple 
finches;  and,  Inst  of  all,  the  bobolink-;  are  far  from  infre- 
quent. I  liav!  written  ab  'Ut  these  new  \  isitors  to  John 
Burroughs,  aiu!  once  when  he  came  out  to  see  me  1  was  able 
to  show  them  to  him. 

When  1  was  President,  we  owned  a  littk'  house  in  western 
\  irginia  ;  a  delightful  house,  to  u>  at  least,  although  onl\-  a 
siiell  of  rough,  boards.  We  used  sometimes  to  go  there  in 
the  fall,  perhaps  at  Thanksgiving,  and  on  these  occasions 
we  would  ha\e  tjuail  and  rabbit-  of  our  own  shooting,  and 
once  in  a  whiii'  a  wikl.turke\.  W'e  also  went  there  in  the 
spring.  ( )f  course-  many  of  the  birt.ls  weri-  difl^eretil  from 
our  Ixmg  Island  friends.  'I'here  were  mocking-birds,  the 
most  attractive  ot   all   birds,  and   blue  grosbeaks    and  cardi- 


346    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


nals  and  summer  redbirds,  instead  of  scarlet  tanagers,  and 
those  wonderful  singers  the  Bewick's  wrens,  and  Carolina 
wrens.  All  these  I  was  able  to  show  John  Burroughs  when 
he  came  to  visit  us;  although,  by  the  way,  he  did  not  appre- 
ciate as  much  as  wc  did  one  set  of  inmates  of  the  cottage  — 
the  flying  squirrels.     Wc  loved  having  the  flying  squirrels, 

father  and  mother  and  half- 
grown  young,  in  their  nest 
among  the  rafters ;  and  at 
night  we  slept  so  soundly 
ihat  wc  did  not  in  the  least 
mind  the  wild  gambols  of 
the  little  fellows  through  the 
nK)ms,  even  when,  as  some- 
times happened,  they  would 
swoop  down  to  the  bed 
and  scuttle  across  it. 

One  April  I  went  to  Yel- 
lowstone Park,  when  the 
snow  was  still  very  deep, 
and  I  took  John  Burroughs 
with  me.  I  wished  to  show 
him  the  big  game  of  the 
I'ark,  the  wild  creatures 
that  have  become  so  aston- 
ishingly tame  and  tolerant 
of  human  presence.  In  the 
Yellowstone  the  animals 
seem  always  to  behave  as 
one  wishes  them  to  I  It  is  always  possible  to  see  the 
sheep  and  deer  and  antelope,  and  also  the  great  herds  of 
elk,  which  are  shyer  than  the  smaller  beasts.  In  April 
we  found  the  elk  weak  after  the  short  commons  and  hard 
living  of  winter.  Once  without  much  difficulty  I  regularly 
rounded  up  a  big  band  of  them,  so  that  John  Burroughs 
could  liM:)k  at  thcin.  I  do  not  think,  however,  that  he 
cared  to  see  them  as  much  as  I  did.  The  birds  interested 
him  more,  especially  a  tiny  owl  the  size  of  a  robin  which  we 
saw  perched  on  the  top  of  a  tree  in  mid-afternoon  entirely 


UNi'^.k  THt     P  •«CH    AT  SvtiVMOBK. 


0UT1XX)RS   AND   INDOORS 


347 


uninflucnct'd  by  the  sun  and  making  a  queer  noise  like  a  cork 
being  pulled  from  a  bottle.  I  was  rather  ashamed  to  find 
how  much  better  his  eyes  were  than  mine  in  seeing  the  birds 
and  grasping  their  diflFerences. 

When  wolf-hunting  in  Texas,  and  when  bear-hunting  in 
Louisiana  and  Mississippi,  I  was  not  only  enthralled  by  the 
sport,  but  also  by  the  strange  new  birds  and  other  creatures, 
and  the  trees  and  flowers  I  had  not  known  before.  By  the 
way,  there  was  one  feast  at  the  White  House  which  stands 
above  all  others  in  my  memory  —  even  above  the  time 
when  I  lured  Joel  Chandler  Harris  thither  for  a  night,  a 
deed  in  which  to  triumph,  as  all  who  knew  that  inveterately 
shy  recluse  will  testify.  This  was  "the  bear-hunters' 
dinner."  I  had  been  treated  so  kindly  by  my  friends  on 
these  hunts,  and  they  were  such  fine  fellows,  men  -whom  I 
was  so  proud  to  think  of  as  Americans,  that  I  set  my  heart 
on  having  them  at  a  hunters'  dinner  at  the  White  House. 
One  December  1  succeeded ;  there  were  twenty  or  thirty  of 
them,  all  told,  as  good  hunters,  as  daring  riders,  as  first-class 
citizens  as  could  be  found  anywhere ;  no  finer  set  of  guests 
ever  sat  at  meat  in  the  White  House  ;  and  among  other  game 
on  the  table  was  a  black  bear,  itself  contributed  by  one  of 
these  same  guests. 

When  I  first  visited  California,  it  was  my  good  fortune  to 
see  the  "big  trees,"  the  Sequoias,  and  then  to  travel  down 
into  the  Vosemitc,  with  John  Muir.  Of  course  of  all  people 
in  the  world  he  was  the  one  with  whom  it  was  best  worth 
while  thus  to  see  the  Vosemite.  He  told  me  that  when 
Kmerson  came  to  California  he  tried  to  get  him  to  come  out 
and  camp  with  him,  for  that  was  the  only  way  in  which  to 
see  at  their  best  the  majesty  and  charm  of  the  Sierras.  But 
at  the  time  Emerson  was  getting  old  and  could  not  go.  John 
Muir  met  me  with  a  couple  of  packers  and  two  mules  to 
carry  our  tent,  bedding,  and  food  for  a  three  days'  trip. 
The  first  night  was  clear,  and  we  lay  down  in  the  darkening 
aisles  of  the  great  Sequoia  grove.  The  majestic  trunks, 
beautiful  in  color  and  in  symmetry,  rose  round  us  like  the 
pillars  of  a  mightier  cathedral  than  ever  was  conceived  even 
by  the  fervor  of  the  Middle  Ages.     Hermit  thrushes  sang 


t 


^,4^      TIIIODOkK    KOOSI'A  I  l.|-       W     M'lOMK  H  iU  AIM  IV 

I'laiililiilU  in  iln  cxciiin^'.  .iiul  .ilmih.  will)  ;i  lunsi  ot  u<>ii- 
ik-rful  imi-ii.  .it  J.iuii.  I  u.i'-  inUifsitil  .iiul  .1  little  sin- 
prisi'd  to  tiiul  iIkiI.  unlike  Julm  lliiri"U.L'li>,  .|"lin  Miiii  eared 


iil   IMHI       III)       Miii-MM.    kil.l      AT    >UiA«clHI 


little  for  bireh  or  bird  >oti^rs.  and  knew  little  about  them. 
Tlu-  hermit  thrushes  meant  nolhini;  to  hinu  the  treis  and  the 
flowers  and  the  elitfs  e\  ir\  thinu'.     The  oiih  birds  he  notieid 


()IID(>C)RS   AM)    INDOORS 


349 


or  cart'd  for  were  sonic  that  were  vi-ry  conspicuous,  such  as 
tlu-  \vatcr-()uscls  always  particular  faxcriu.^  of  mine  too. 
The  second  riij?hl  uc  cainpid  in  a  snow-sifiriM.  on  the  edge 
of  tlie  canon  walls,  un*.Ur  the  spreading  liiMbs  of  a  grove  of 
might)  siher  fir;  and  next  day  \w  went  down  into  the 
wonderland  of  the  valle)  itself.  1  ^hail  always  be  glad 
that  I  was  in  the  \'oseniit(  witli  John  .Muir  ami  in  the 
\  ellowstoiie  with  John  Burroughs. 

Like  most  .Americans  intere>tetl  in  birds  atul  books,  I 
know  a  good  deal  about  l*!nglish  binls  as  the\-  appear  in 
books.  I  know  the  lark  ol  .Sjiakespeare  and  Shellej  antl  the 
Mttrick  Siiepherd  ;  I  know  the  nightingale  <>f  Milton  and 
Keats;  I  know  WOnlsworth's  ciukni.;  I  know  ma\is  and 
merle  singii;g  in  the  merrv  green  wood  <>!  the  oki  ballads;  I 
know  |enn\  Wren  an<.l  Cock  Robin  ol  the  nursery  books. 
Tlurefore  I  had  alwa_\  s  much  desired  to  hear  the  birds  in 
real  life;  and  the  opportunity  otTired  in  June,  l(;io,  when  I 
spent  two  or  three  weiks  in  Knglaiul.  As  I  coukl  snatch  but 
a  few  hours  from  a  very  exacting  rouuil  of  pleasures  and 
duties,  it  was  necissary  lor  me  to  1h'  with  vonu-  companion 
who  could  idenlil)  both  song  and  singer.  In  Sir  I'.dward 
(ire),  a  keen  lo\er  of  outdoor  lili'  in  all  its  [iJiases,  and  a 
di-lightful  companion,  who  knows  tlu'  sonirs  and  ways  ol 
I'.nglish  birds  as  \er)  few  do  know  them,  I  lound  the  best 
possible  guide. 

We  left  London  on  the  morning  ot  juiu-  <>,  t  went)-l(jur 
hours  before  I  sailed  from  Southampton,  (.ietiijig  off  the 
train  at  Basingstoke,  we  dro\i>  to  tlu-  prett),  smiling  \  allc) 
of  the  Itchen.  Here  wi'  tramped  for  three  or  four  hours, 
then  again  ilroxc.  this  time  to  the  etlt'e  o|  the  \c-w  I'orivi, 
where  we  first  took  tea  at  an  inn,  and  then  iramjM-d  lhrous.'li 
the  forest  to  an  inn  on  its  other  side,  at  Brockiiihurst.  .\t 
the  conclusion  of  our  walk  ni)  companion  made  ..  list  ol  the 
binls  we  had  seen,  putting  an  asterisk  (*)  opjiosite  those 
which  we  had  heard  sing.  There  were  lort ) -one  of  the 
former  ami  t  went) -thn-e  o|  tlu   lattir,  as  loll<iw-  : 


*  ' 


rh 


rusli. 


blackbird,    * 


ar 


\  ellow  liamnK  I 
wren,      'golden-crested    wren,      *  'joldtincli.      * 
*  ■••• ^i...  I.     ..:... 1    ..•....•.:i     .  .^ ■....      *  Jiiniiock   i  lietlge.   ac 


'  r     ■  —  ..-.-.-- 

grei'nHnch,   pied   wagtail,  >parrow 


*  robin, 
lafftneli. 


.r. 


350    THKODORE    ROOSEVELT  -  AN    AUTOBICKJRAI'HY 

centor).  missel  thrush,  .starling,  rook,  jackdaw,  *  blackcap, 

♦  Kardcn  warbler,  ♦  willow  warbler,  *  chiffchaff,  w.kkI 
warbler,  tree-creeper,  •  reed  bunting,  *  sedge  warb  cr.  ccxjt, 
water  hen.  little  grebe  (dabchick),  tufted  duck,  W(xk  o.geon, 
stock  dove,  *  turtle  dove,  peewit,  tit  (  ?  coal  tit),  *    uckoo, 

*  nightjar,  *  swallow,  martin,  swift,  pheasant,  partridge. 
The  valley  of  the  Itchen  is  typically  the  Kngland  that  we 

know  from  novel  and  story  and  essay.     It  is  very  beautifnl 
in  everv   wav,   with   a   rich,  civilized,  fertile  beauty    -  tiic 
rapid  hr.Kik  twisting  among  its  reed  beds,  the  rich  grt-en  ot 
trees  and  grass,  the  stately  w<K)ds.  the  gardens  and  hcids, 
the  exceedinglv   picturesque  cottages,  the  great  handsome 
houso   standing  in   their  parks.     Birds   were   nlentitul;     1 
know  but  few  places  in  America  where  one  would  ser  such  an 
abundance  of  individuals,  and  I  was  struck  by  seeing  Mich 
large  birds  as  coots,  water  hens,  grebes,  tufted  ducks,  pig- 
eons, and  peewits.     In  places  in  America  as  thickly  settled 
as  the  vallev  of  the  Itchen,  I  should  not  expect  to  see  any 
like  number' of  birds  of  this  size;   but  I  hope  that  the  efforts 
of   the    Xuduboii    societies   and    kindred   organizations   will 
gradually  make  themselves  felt  until  it  becomes  a  point  of 
honor  not  only  with  the  American  man,  but  with  the  Amer- 
ican small  bov,  to  shield  and  protect  all  forms  of  harmless 
wild  life.     True  sportsmen  should  take  the  lead  in  such  a 
movement,  for  if  there  is  to  be  any  shootinp  there  must  be 
something  to  sh(x>t ;  the  prime  necessity  is  to  keep,  and  not 
kill  out,  even  the  birds  which  in  legitimate  numbers  may  be 

The  New  Forest  is  a  wild,  uninhabited  stretch  of  heath 
and  woodland,  manv  of  the  trees  gnarled  and  aged,  and  its 
very  wildness,  the  lack  of  cultivation,  the  ruggedness,  made 
it  stronglv  attractive  in  my  eyes,  and  suggested  my  own 
country.  '  The  birds  of  course  were  much  less  plentiful  than 
beside  the  Itchen. 

The  bird  that  nu.M  impressed  me  on  my  walk  was  the 
blackbird.  I  had  alreadv  luard  nightingales  in  abundance 
near  Lake  Como,  and  had  also  listened  to  larks,  but  I  had 
never  heard  either  the  blackbird,  the  song  thrush,  or  the 
blackcap  warbler  ;    and  while   I   knew  that  all  three  were 


OITDOORS  AND   INDOORS 


35> 


K«>«»J  singers,  I  did  not  know  what  really  beautiful  singers 
they  were.  Blackbirds  were  very  abundant,  and  they 
played  a  prominent  pari  in  the  i  horus  which  we  heard 
throughout  the  day  on  every  hand,  though  perhaps  loudest 
the  following  morning  at  dawn.  In  its  habits  and  manners 
the  blackbird  strikingly  resembles  our  American  robin,  and 
indeed  looks  exactly  like  a  robin,  with  a  yellow  bill  and  coal- 
black  plumage.  It  hops  everywhere  over  the  lawns,  just 
as  our  robin  does,  and  it  lives  and  nest>  in  the  gardens  in  the 
same  fashion.  Its  song  has  a  general  resemblance  to  that 
of  our  robin,  but  many  of  the  notes  are  far  more  musical, 
more  like  those  of  our  W(K)d  thrush.  Indeed,  there  were 
individuals  among  those  we  heard  certain  of  whose  notes 
seemed  to  me  almost  to  equal  in  point  of  melody  the  chimes 
of  the  wood  thrush  ;  and  the  highest  possible  praise  for  any 
song-bird  is  to  liken  its  song  to  that  of  the  wood  thrush  or 
hermit  thrush.  1  certainly  do  not  think  that  the  blackbird 
has  received  full  justice  in  the  lxx)ks.  I  knew  that  he  was  a 
singer,  but  I  really  had  no  idea  how  fine  a  singer  he  was. 
I  suppose  one  of  his  troubles  has  been  his  name,  just  as  with 
our  own  catbird.  When  he  appears  in  the  ballads  as  the 
merle,  bracketed  with  his  cousin  the  mavis,  the  song  thrush, 
it  is  far  easier  to  recognize  him  as  the  master  singer  that  he 
is.  It  is  a  fine  thing  for  England  to  have  such  an  asset  of 
the  countryside,  a  bird  so  common,  so  much  in  evidence,  so 
fearless,  and  such  a  really  beautiful  singer. 

The  thrush  is  a  fine  singer  too,  a  better  singer  than  our 
American  robin,  but  to  my  mind  not  at  the  best  quite  as  good 
as  the  blackbird  at  his  best ;  although  often  I  found  difficulty 
in  telling  the  song  of  one  from  the  song  of  the  other,  espe- 
cially if  I  only  heard  two  or  three  notes. 

The  larks  were,  of  course,  exceedingly  attractive.  It  was 
fascinating  to  see  them  spring  from  the  grass,  circle  upwards, 
steadily  singing  and  soaring  for  several  minutes,  and  then 
return  to  the  point  whence  they  had  started.  .\s  my  com- 
panion pointed  out,  they  exactly  fulfilled  Wordsworth's 
description;  they  soared  but  did  not  roam.  It  is  quite 
impossible  wholly  to  differentiate  a  bird's  voice  from  its 
habits  and  surroundings.     Although  in  the  lark's  song  there 


II 


;lt- 


MICROCOPY   RESOLUTION   TEST  CHART 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No   2i 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


1.4 


2.5 


;-  iiiiM 

I:  a^ 
MO   mil  2.0 


1.8 


1.6 


^  /APPLIED  INA^GE  Jr 

r»  ^.Xh.psfer,     %p*     tori.  '4609  uSA 

JS  "  ''6)    *82   -   0300    -  Phons 

^S  '16}   288   -  ^989  -  Fo» 


352    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AX    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

arc  occasional  musical  notes,  llic  song  as  a  wliolc  is  not  very 
musical;  but  it  is  so  joyous,  buoyant  and  unbroken,  and 
uttered  under  such  conditions  as  fully  to  entitle  the  bird  to 
the  place  he  occupies  with  both  poet  and  prose  writer. 

The  most  musical  singer  we  heard  was  the  blackcap 
warbler.  To  my  ear  its  st)ng  seemed  more  musical  than  that 
of  the  nightingale.  It  was  astonishingly  powerful  for  so 
small  a  bird  ;  in  volume  and  continuity  it  does  not  come  up 
to  the  songs  of  the  thrushes  and  of  certain  other  birds,  but 
in  quality,  as  an  isolated  bit  of  melody,  it   can  hardly  be 

surpassed.  _  •       i  i        ai'^ 

Among  the  minor  singers  the  robin  was  noticeable.  We 
all  know  this  pretty  little  bird  from  the  books,  and  I  was 
prepared  to  find  hin'i  as  friendly  and  attractive  as  he  proved 
to  be,  but  I  had  not  realized  how  well  he  sang.  It  is  not  a 
loud  song,  but  very  musical  and  attractive,  and  the  bird  is 
said  to  sing  practically  all  through  the  year.  The  song  of 
the  wren  interested  me  much,  because  it  was  not  in  the  least 
like  that  of  our  house  wren,  but,  on  the  contrary,  like  that  of 
our  winter  wren.  The  theme  is  the  same  as  the  winter 
wren's,  but  the  song  did  not  seem  to  me  to  be  as  brilliantly 
musical  as  that  of  the  tiny  singer  of  the  North  Woods.  The 
sedge  warbler  sang  in  the  thick  reeds  a  mocking  ventriloquial 
lay,  which  reminded  me  at  times  of  the  less  pronounced 
parts  of  our  yellow-breasted  chat's  song.  The  cuckoo's  cry 
was  singularly  attractive  and  musical,  far  more  so  than  the 
rolling,  many  times  repeated,  note  of  our  rain-crow. 

We  did  not  reach  the  inn  at  Brockenhurst  until  about 
nine  o'clock,  just  at  nightfall,  and  a  few  minutes  before  that 
we  heard  a  nightjar.  It  did  not  sound  in  the  least  like 
either  our  whip-poor-will  or  our  night-hawk,  uttering  a  long- 
continued  call  of  one  or  two  syllables,  repeated  over  and 
over.  The  chaffinch  was  very  much  in  evidence,  contin- 
ually chaunting  its  unimportant  little  ditty.  I  was  pleased 
to  see  the  bold,  masterful  missel  thrush,  the  stormcock  as 
it  is  often  called ;  but  this  bird  breeds  and  sings  in  the  early 
spring,  when  the  weather  is  still  tempestuous,  and  had  long 
been  silent  when  we  saw  it.  The  starlings,  rooks,  and  jack- 
daws did  not  sing,  and  their  calls  were  attractive  merely  as 


OUTDOORS  AND   INDOORS  353 

the  calls  of  our  grakles  are  attractive ;  and  the  other  birds 
that  we  heard  sing,  though  they  played  their  part  in  the 
general  chorus,  were  performers  of  no  especial  note,  like  our 
tree-creepers,  pine  warblers,  and  eliipping  sparrows.  The 
great  spring  chorus  had  already  begun  to  subside,  but  the 
woods  and  fields  were  still  vocal  with  beautiful  bird  music, 
the  country  was  very  lovely,  the  inn  as  comfortable  as 
possible,  and  the  bath  and  supper  very  enjoyable  after  our 


From  the  Simmer  Hoise  at  Sagamore. 

tramp ;    and  altogether  I  passed  no  pleasanter  twenty-four 
hours  during  my  entire  European  trip. 

Ten  days  later,  at  Sagamore  Hill,  I  was  among  my  own 
birds,  and  was  much  interested  as  I  listened  to  and  looked 
at  them  in  remembering  the  notes  and  actions  of  the  birds 
I  had  seen  in  England.  On  the  evening  of  the  first  day  I  sat 
m  my  rocking-chair  on  the  broad  veranda,  looking  across  the 
Sound  towards  the  glory  of  the  sunset.  The  thickly  grassed 
hillside  sloped  down  in  front  of  me  to  a  belt  of  forest  from 
which  rose  the  golden,  leisurely  chiming  of  the  wood  thrushes, 
chanting  their  vespers  ;  through  the  still  air  came  the  warble 


J) 


354     I'HEODORE    ROOSKA  KI/I' —  AN    M  TOBIOCiRAPHV 

of  virco  and  tanagcr ;  and  after  nightfall  we  heard  the  flight 
song  of  an  ovenbird  from  the  same  belt  of  timber.  Over- 
head an  oriole  sang  in  the  weeping  elm,  now  and  then  break- 
ing his  song  to  scold  like  an  overgrown  wren.  Song-spar- 
rows and  catbirds  sang  in  the  shrubbery ;  one  robin  had 
built  its  nest  over  the  front  and  one  over  the  back  door,  and 
there  was  a  chippy's  nest  in  the  wistaria  vine  by  the  stoop. 
During  the  next  twenty-four  hours  I  saw  and  heard,  either 
right  around  the  house  or  while  walking  down  to  bathe, 
through  the  woods,  the  following  forty-two  birds  : 

Little  green  heron,  night  heron,  red-tailed  hawk,  yellow- 
billed  cuckoo,  kingfisher,  flicker,  humming-bird,  swift, 
meadow-lark,  red-winged  blackbird,  sharp-tailed  finch,  song 
sparrow,  chipping  sparrow,  bush  sparrow,  purple  finch, 
Baltimore  oriole,  cowbunting,  robin,  wood  thrush,  thrasher, 
catbird,  scarlet  tanager,  red-eyed  vireo,  yellow  warbler, 
black-throated  green  warbler,  kingbird,  wood  peewee,  crow, 
blue  jay,  cedar-bird,  Maryland  yellowthroat,  chickadee, 
black  and  white  creeper,  barn  swallow,  white-breasted 
swallow,  ovenbird,  thistlefinch,  vesperfinch,  indigo  bunting, 
towhee,  grasshopper-sparrow,  and  screech  owl. 

The  biros  were  still  in  full  song,  for  on  Long  Island  there 
is  little  abatement  in  the  chorus  until  about  the  second  week 
of  July,  when  the  blossoming  of  the  chestnut  trees  patches 
the  woodland  with  frothy  greenish-yellow.' 

Our  most  beautiful  singers  are  the  wood  thrushes ;  they 
sing  not  only  in  the  early  morning  but  throughout  the  long 
hot  June  afternoons.  Sometimes  they  sing  in  the  trees  im- 
mediately around  the  house,  and  if  the  air  is  still  we  can 
always  hear  them  from  among  the  tall  trees  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill.  The  thrashers  sing  in  the  hedgerows  beyond  the 
garden,  the  catbirds  everywhere.  The  catbirds  have  such 
an  attractive  song  that  it  is  extremely  irritating  to  know  that 
at  any  moment  they  may  interrupt  it  to  mew  and  squeal. 
The  bold,  cheery  music  of  the  robins  always  seems  typical  of 
the  bold,  cheery  birds  themselves.  The  Baltimore  orioles 
nest  in  the  young  elms  around  the  house,  and  the  orchard 

'  Aias  !  the  blijrht  has  now  destroyed  the  chestnut  trees,  and  robbed  our 
woods  of  one  ot  their  distinctive  beauties. 


OUTDOORS  AND   INDOORS 


355 


orioles  in  the  apple  trees  near  the  garden  and  outbuildings. 
Among  the  earliest  sounds  of  spring  is  the  cheerful,  simple, 
homely  song  of  the  song-sparrow;    and  in  March  we  also 
hear  the  piercing  cadence  of  the  meadow-lark  —  to  us  one 
of  the  most  attractive  of  all  bird  calls.     Of  late  years  now 
and  then  we  hear  the  rollicking,  bubbling  melody  of  the 
bobolink  in  the  pastures  back  of  the  barn  ;  and  when  the  full 
chorus  of  these  and  of  many  other  of  the  singers  of  spring  is 
dying  down,  there  are  some  true  hot-weather  songsters,  such 
as   the   brightly   hued   indigo   buntings   and   thistlefinches. 
Among  the  finches  one  of  the  most  musical  and  plaintive  songs 
IS  that  of  the  bush-sparrow  —  I  do  not  know  why  the  books 
call  It  field-sparrow,  for  it  does  not  dwell  in  the  open  fields 
like  the  vesperiinch,  the  savannah-sparrow,  and  grasshopper- 
sparrow,  but  among  the  cedars  and  bayberry  bushes  and 
young  locusts  in  the  same  places  where  the  prairie  warbler 
is  found.     Nor  is  it  only  the  true  songs  that  delight  us. 
We  love  to  hear  the  flickers  call,  and  we  readily  pardon  any 
one  of  their  number  which,  as  occasionally  happens,  is  hh\d 
enough  to  wake  us  in  the  early  morning  by  drumming  on 
the  shingles  of  the  roof.     In  our  cars  the  red-winged  black- 
birds have  a  very  attractive  note.     We  love  the  screaming  of 
the  red-tailed  hawks  as  they  soar  high  overhead,  and  even 
the  calls  of  the  night  heron  that  nest  in  the  tall  water  maples 
by  one  of  the  wood  ponds  on  our  place,  and  the  little  green 
herons  that  nest  beside  the  salt  marsh.     It  is  hard  to  tell  just 
how  much  of  the  attraction  in  any  bird-note  lies  in  the  music 
Itself  and  how  much  in  the  associations.     This  is  what  makes 
it  so  useless  to  try  to  compare  the  bird  songs  of  one  country 
with  those  of  another.     A  man  who  is  worth  anything  can 
no  more  be  entirely  impartial  in  speaking  of  the  bird  songs 
with  which  from  his  earliest  childhood  he  has  been  familiar 
than  he  can  be  entirely  impartial  in  speakingof  his  own  family. 
At  Sagamore  Hill  we  love  a  great  many  things  —  birds 
and  trees  and  books,  and  ill  things  beautiful,  and  horses  and 
rifles  and  children  and  hard  work  and  the  joy  of  life.     We 
have  great  fireplaces,  and  in  them  the  logs  roar  and  crackle 
during  the  long  winter  evenings.     The  big  piazza  is  for  the 
hot,  still  afternoons  of  summer.     As  in  every  house,  there 
arc  things  that  appeal  to  the  householder  because  of  their 


'} 


3s6    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


''.L 


associations,  but  which  would  not  mean  much  to  others. 
Naturally,  any  man  who  has  been  President,  and  filled  other 
positions,  accumulates  such  things,  with  scant  regard  to  his 
own  personal  merits.     Perhaps  our  most  cherished  posses- 
sions are  a  Remington  bronze,  "The  Bronco  Buster,"  given 
me  by  my  men  when  the  regiment  was  mustered  out,  and  a 
big  Tiffan     silver  vase  given  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt  by  the  en- 
listed men  of   the  battleship    Louisiana  after  we  returned 
from  a  cruise  on  her  to  Panama.     It  was  a  real  surprise  gift, 
presented  to  her  in  the  White  House,  on  behalf  of  the  whole 
crew,  by  four  as  strapping  man-of-war 's-men  as  ever  swung 
a  turret  or  pointed  a  twelve-inch  gun.     The  enlisted  men  of 
the  army  I  already  knew  well  —  of  course  I  knew  well  the 
officers  of  both  army  and  navy.     But  the  enlisted  men  of 
the  navy  I  only  grew  to  know  well  when  I  was  President. 
On  the  Louisiana  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  I  once  dined  at  the 
chief  petty  officers'  mess,  and  on  another  battleship,  the 
Missouri  (when  I  was  in  company  with  Admiral  Evans  and 
Captain  Cowles),  and  again  on  the  Sylph  and  on  the  May- 
flower, we  also  dined   as  guests  of  the  crew.     When   we 
finished  our  trip  on  the  Louisiana  I  made  a  short  speech  to 
the  assembled  crew,  and  at  its  close  one  of  the  petty  officers, 
the  very  picture  of  what  a  man-of-war's-man  should  look 
like,  proposed  three  cheers  for  me  in  terms  that  struck  me 
as  curiously  illustrative  of  America  at  her  best ;    he  said, 
"Now   then,   men,    three   cheers   for  Theodore   Roosevelt, 
the  typical  American  citizen  !"     That  was  the  way  in  which 
they  thought  of  the  American  President  —  and  a  very  good 
way,  too.     It  was  an  expression  that  would  have  come  nat- 
urally only  to  men   in   whom   the  American  principles  of 
government   and   life   were   ingrained,   just   as   they   were 
ingrained    in    the   men  of  my  regiment.     I    need    scarcely 
add,  but  I  will  add  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  do  not  know, 
that  this  attitude  of  self-respecting  identification  of  interest 
and  purpose  is  not  only  compatible  with  but  can  only  exist 
when  there  is  fine  and  real  discipline,  as  thorough  and  gen- 
uine as  the  discipline  that  has  always  obtained  in  the  most 
formidable  fighting  fleets  and  armies.     The  discipline  and 
the  mutual   respect  are  complementary,   not  antagonistic. 


:l 


OUTDOORS   AND   INDOORS 


357 


During  the  Presidency  all  of  us,  but  especially  the  children, 
became  close  friends  with  many  of  the  sailor  men.  The  four 
bearers  of  the  vase  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt  were  prinnptly  hailed 
as  delightful  big  brothers  by  our  two  smallest  boys,  who  at 
once  took  them  to  see  the  sights  of  Washington  in  the 
landau  — "the  President's  land-ho!"  as,  with  seafaring 
humor,  our  guests  immediately  styled  it.  Once,  after  we  were 
in  private  life  again,  Mrs. 
Roosevelt  was  in  a  railway 
station  and  had  some  diffi- 
culty with  her  ticket.  A  fine- 
looking,  quiet  man  stepped 
up  and  asked  if  he  could 
be  of  help ;  he  remarked 
that  he  had  been  one  of  the 
Mayflower's  crew,  and  knew 
us  well ;  and  in  answer  to  a 
question  explained  that  he 
had  left  the  navy  in  order 
to  study  dentistry,  and 
added — a  delicious  touch  - 
that  while  thus  preparing 
himself  to  be  a  dentist  he 
was  earning  the  necessary 
money  to  go  on  with  his 
studies  by  practicing  the  profession  of  a  prize-fighter,  being 
a  good  man  in  the  ring. 

There  are  various  bronzes  in  the  house  :  Saint-Gaudens's 
"Puritan,"  a  token  from  my  staff  officers  when  I  was  Gov- 
ernor; Proctor's  cougar,  the  gift  of  the  Tennis  Cabinet  — 
who  also  gave  us  a  beautiful  silver  bowl,  which  is  always 
lovingly  pronounced  to  rhyme  with  "owl"  because  that  was 
the  pronunciation  used  at  the  time  of  the  giving  by  the  val- 
ued friend  who  acted  as  spokesman  for  his  fellow-members, 
and  who  was  himself  the  only  non-American  member  of  the 
said  Cabinet.  There  is  a  horseman  by  Macmonnies,  and  a 
big  bronze  vase  by  Kemys,  an  adaptation  or  development 
of  the  pottery  vases  of  the  Southwestern  Indians.  Mixed 
with  all  of  these  are  gifts  from  varied  sources,  ranging  from 


Ja(K  and  his  Mastkr. 


;.ii 


35H      illKODORK    RO(JSK\  Kl.T  -  AN    AITOBIOGRAPHV 


.sy 


a  brazen  Buddha  sent  me  by  the  Dalai  Lama  and  a  wonder- 
ful psalter  from  the  Emperor  Menelik  to  a  priceless  ancient 
Samurai  sword,  coming  from  Japan  in  remembrance  of  the 
peace  of  Portsmouth,  and  a  beautifully  inlaid  miniature 
suit  of  Japanese  armor,  given  me  by  a  favorite  hero  of  mine, 
Admiral  Togo,  when  he  visited  Sagamore  Hill.  There  are 
things  from  European  friends;  a  mosaic  picture  of  Pope 
Leo  XIII  in  his  garden  ;  a  huge,  very  handsome  edition  of  the 
Nibelungenlied  ;  a  striking  miniature  of  John  Hampden  from 
Windsor  Castle;  editions  of  Dante,  and  the  campaigns 
of  "Eugeiiio  von  Savoy"  (another  of  my  heroes,  a  dead  hero 
this  time);  a  Viking  cup;  the  state  sword  of  a  IJganda 
king;  the  gold  box  in  which  the  "freedom  of  the  city  of 
London"  was  given  me;  a  beautiful  head  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  given  me  by  the  French  authorities  after  my  speech 
at  the  Sorbonne;  and  many  other  things  from  sources  as 
diverse  as  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  and  the  Dowager  Empress 
of  China.  Then  there  are  things  from  home  friends :  a 
Polar  bear  skin  from  Peary;  a  Sioux  buffalo  robe  with,  on  it, 
painted  by  some  long-dead  Sioux  artist,  the  picture  story 
of  Custer's  fight;  a  bronze  portrait  plaque  of  Joel  Chandler 
Harris ;  the  candlestick  used  in  sealing  the  Treaty  of  Ports- 
mouth, sent  me  by  Captain  Cameron  VV'inslow ;  a  shoe  worn 
by  Dan  Patch  when  he  paced  a  mile  in  1.59,  sent  me  by  his 
owner.  There  is  a  picture  of  a  bull  moose  by  Carl  Run- 
gius,  which  seems  to  me  as  spirited  a.;  animal  painting  as 
I  have  ever  seen.  In  the  north  room,  with  its  tables  and 
mantelpiece  and  desks  and  chests  made  of  woods  sent  from 
the  Philippines  by  army  friends,  or  by  other  friends  for  other 
reasons;  with  its  bison  and  wapiti  heads;  there  are  three 
paintings  by  Marcus  Symonds  —  "Where  Light  and  Shadow 
Meet,"  "The  Porcelain  Towers,"  and  "The  Seats  of  the 
Mighty" ;  he  is  dead  now,  and  he  had  scant  recognition 
while  he  lived,  yet  surely  he  was  a  great  imaginative  artist, 
a  wonderful  colorist,  and  a  man  with  a  vision  more  wonder- 
ful still.  There  is  one  of  Lungren's  pictures  of  the  Western 
plains ;  and  a  picture  of  the  Grand  Canyon ;  and  one  by  a 
Scandinavian  artist  who  could  see  the  fierce  picturcsqucncss 
of  workaday  Pittsburgh ;  and  sketches  of  the  White  House 
by  Sargent  and  bv  Hopkinson  Smith. 


OUTDOORS  AND  INDOORS 


359 


The  books  are  everywhere.  There  are  as  many  in  the 
north  room  and  in  the  parlor  —  is  drawing-room  a  more 
appropriate  name  than  parlor  ?  —  as  in  the  library  ;  the  gun- 
room at  the  top  of  the  house,  which  in.  dentally  has  the 
loveliest  view  of  all,  contains  more  books  than  any  of  the 
other  rooms;  and  they  are  particularly  delightful  books  to 


The  N'uktu  Koou  at  Sag-miore. 


browse  among,  just  because  they  have  not  much  relevance 
to  one  another,  this  being  one  of  the  reasons  why  they  are 
relegated  to  their  present  abode.  But  the  books  have  over- 
flowed into  all  the  other  rooms  too. 

I  could  not  name  any  principle  upon  which  the  books  have 
been  gathered.  Books  are  almost  as  individual  as  friends. 
There  is  no  earthly  use  in  laying  down  general  laws  about 
them.     Some  meet  the  needs  of  one  person,  and  some  o^ 


36o    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


» 

'ii 


another ;  and  each  person  should  beware  of  the  booklover's 
besetting  sin,  of  what  Mr.  Edgar  Allan  Poc  calls  "the  mad 
pride  of  intellectuality,"  taking  the  shape  of  arrogant 
pity  for  the  man  who  docs  not  like  the  same  kind  of  books. 
Of  course  there  are  books  which  a  man  or  woman  uses  as 
instruments  of  a  profession  —  law  books,  medical  books, 
cookery  books,  and  the  like.  I  am  not  speaking  of  these, 
for  they  are  not  properly  "books"  at  all ;  they  come  in  the 
category  of  time-tables,  telephone  directories,  and  other 
useful  agencies  of  civilized  life.  I  am  speaking  of  books  that 
are  meant  to  be  read.  Personally,  granted  that  these  books 
are  decent  and  healthy,  the  one  test  to  which  I  demand  that 
they  all  submit  is  that  of  being  interesting.  If  the  book 
is  not  interesting  to  the  reader,  then  in  all  but  an  infinitesimal 
number  of  cases  it  gives  scant  benefit  to  the  reader.  Of 
course  any  reader  ought  to  cultivate  his  or  her  taste  so  that 
good  books  will  appeal  to  it,  and  that  trash  won't.  But 
after  this  point  has  once  been  reached,  the  needs  of  each 
reader  must  be  met  in  a  fashion  that  will  appeal  to  those 
needs.  Personally  the  books  by  which  I  have  profited 
infinitely  more  than  by  any  others  have  been  those  in  which 
profit  was  a  by-product  of  the  pleasure ;  that  is,  I  read  them 
because  I  enjoyed  them,  because  I  liked  reading  them,  and 
the  profit  came  in  as  part  of  the  enjoyment. 

Of  course  each  individual  is  apt  to  have  some  special  tastes 
in  which  he  cannot  expect  that  any  but  a  few  friends  will 
share.  Now,  I  am  very  proud  of  my  big-game  library.  I 
suppose  there  must  be  many  big-game  libraries  in  Conti- 
nental Europe,  and  possibly  in  England,  more  extensive 
than  mine,  but  I  have  not  happened  to  come  across  any 
such  library  in  this  country.  Some  of  the  originals  go  back 
to  the  sixteenth  century,  and  there  are  copies  or  reproduc- 
tions of  the  two  or  three  most  famous  hunting  books  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  such  as  the  Duke  of  York's  translation  of 
Gaston  Phoebus,  and  the  queer  book  of  the  Emperor  Maximil- 
ian. It  is  only  very  occasionally  that  I  meet  any  one  who 
cares  for  any  of  these  books.  On  the  other  hand,  I  expect  to 
find  many  friends  who  will  turn  naturally  to  some  of  the 
old  or  the  new  books  of  poetry  or  romance  or  history  to 


Ol'TDOORS   AND   INDOORS 


361 


which  we  of  the  household  habitually  turn.  Let  me  add 
that  ours  is  in  no  sense  a  collector's  library.  Each  book 
was  procured  because  some  one  of  the  family  wished  to 
read  it.  VVe  could  never  afford  to  take  overmuch  thought 
for  the  outsides  of  books  ;  we  were  too  much  interested  in  their 
insides. 

Now  and  then  I  am  asked  as  to  "  A^hat  botjks  a  statesman 
should  read,"  and  my  answer  is,  poetry  and  novels  — 
including  short  stories  under  the  head  of  novels.  I  don't 
mean  that  he  should  read  only  novels  and  modern  poetry. 
If  he  cannot  also  enjiy  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  the  Greek 
dramatists,  he  should  be  sorry.  He  ought  to  read  inter- 
esting books  on  history  and  government,  and  books  of 
science  and  philosophy ;  and  really  good  books  on  these 
subjects  are  as  ernhralling  as  any  fiction  ever  written  in 
prose  or  verse.  Gibbon  and  Macaulay,  Herodotus,  Thucyd- 
idcs  and  Tacitus,  the  Heimskringla,  Froissart,  Joinville 
and  Villehardouin,  Parkman  and  \Iahan,  Mommsen  and 
Ranke  —  why  !  there  are  scores  and  scores  of  solid  histories, 
the  best  in  the  world,  which  are  as  absorbing  as  the  best  of 
all  the  novels,  and  of  as  permanent  value.  The  same  thing 
is  true  of  Darwin  and  Huxley  and  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  and 
parts  of  Kant,  and  of  volumes  like  Sutherland's  "Growth  of 
the  Moral  Instinct,"  or  Acton's  Essays  and  Lounsb  iry's 
studies  —  here  again  I  am  not  trying  to  class  books  together, 
or  measure  one  by  another,  or  enumerate  one  in  a  thousand 
of  those  worth  reading,  but  just  to  indicate  that  any  man  or 
woman  of  some  intelligence  and  some  cultivation  can  in 
some  line  or  other  of  serious  thought,  scientific  or  historical 
or  philosophical  or  economic  or  governmental,  find  any 
number  of  books  which  arc  charming  to  read,  and  which  in 
addition  give  that  for  which  his  or  her  soul  hungers.  I  do 
not  for  a  minute  mean  that  the  statesman  ought  not  to 
read  a  great  many  different  books  of  this  character,  just  as 
every  one  else  should  read  them.  But,  in  the  final  event, 
the  statesman,  and  the  publicist,  and  the  reformer,  and  the 
agitator  for  lu-w  tiling-:,  and  xh.v  upholder  of  what  is  good  in 
old  things,  all  need  more  than  anything  else  to  know  human 
nature,  to  know  the  needs  of  the  human  soul ;  and  they  will 


i'ii 


362    'iHKODORK    RCKJSKV  KLT  —  AN    AlJ'I'OBlCXiRAPHV 


find  this  nature  and  thost-  tict-ds  set  forth  as  nowhiro  else 
by  the  great  imaginative  writers,  whether  of  prose  or  of 
poetry. 

The  r<K)m  for  choice  is  so  limitless  that  to  my  mind  it 
seems  aiisurd  to  try  to  make  catalogues  which  shall  be  sup- 
posed to  appeal  to  all  the  best  thinkers.  This  is  why  I  have 
no  sympathy  whatever  with  writing  lists  of  thr  One  Hundred 

Best  B(X)ks,  or  the  Five- 
Foot  Library.  It  is  all 
right  for  a  man  to  amuse 
himself  by  composing  a  list 
of  a  hundred  very  g<K)d 
books;  and  if  he  is  to  go 
off  for  a  year  or  so  where 
he  cannot  get  many  books, 
il  is  an  excellent  thing  to 
choose  a  five-foot  library 
of  particular  books  which 
in  that  particular  year  and 
on  that  particular  trip  he 
would  like  to  read.  But 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
luindred  books  that  are 
In-st  for  all  men,  or  for  the 
majority  of  men,  or  for  one 
man  at  all  times;  and 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
five-foot  library  which  will 
satisfy  the  needs  of  even 
one  particular  man  on  dif- 
ferent ocLisions  extending  over  a  number  of  years.  Milton  is 
best  for  o  le  mood  and  Pope  for  another.  Because  a  man 
likes  Whitman  or  Brtnvning  or  Lowell  he  should  not  feel 
himself  debarred  from  Tennyson  or  Kipling  or  Korncr  or 
Heine  or  the  Bard  of  the  Dlmbovitza.  Tolstoy's  novels 
are  good  at  one  time  and  those  of  Sienkiewicz  at  another; 
and  he  is.  fortunate  \\h:>  can  relish  "  Salammbo"  and  "Tom 
Biown  "  and  the  "Two  .\dmiral;;  "  and  "Quentin  Durward  " 
and  "Artemus  Ward"  and  the  "  Ingoldsby  Legends"  ai.d 


Till      MlMKISS   or   SvGAMnKI     HlLI. 


oril)(M)KS   AM)    INDOORS 


3^-1 


I 


"  l'iik\VKk"arul  "\anity  Fair."  Why,  tlictvarr  liiiiKlrtdsof 
books  like  llitsc,  rath  one  of  whicli,  if  ii-ail\  nail,  rt-aily 
asMMiilatcd,  h\  thr  piisoii  to  whom  it  hapfn'tis  to  appeal, 
will  cuabU-  thai  pirsoii  qiiitr  umonsciousl)  to  furnish  him- 
self with  much  ammunition  vvhicii  he  will  'find  of  use  in  the 
battle  of  life. 

.'\  b(K)k  must  be  interestinj;  to  the  particular  reader  at  that 
particular  time.  But  tlure  are  tens  of  thousands  of  inttr- 
estin^f  books,  and  some  of  them  are  sealed  to  some  men  and 
some  are  sealed  to  others;  and  some  stir  the  soul  at  some 
given  point  of  a  tiian's  life  and  yet  convey  no  messajfe  at  other 
times.  The  reader,  the  booklover,  must  meet  his  own  needs 
without  paying  too  much  attention  to  what  his  neighbors 
say  those  neei's  should  be.  \W-  must  not  hvpocritically 
retend  to  like  what  he  does  not  like,  ^'et  at  tlie  same  time 
le  must  avoid  that  most  unpleasant  of  all  the  indicatiotis  of 
puffed-up  vanity  which  consists  in  treating  nure  individual, 
and  perhaps  unfortunate,  idiosyncrasy  as  a  matter  of  pride. 
I  happen  to  be  devoted  to  Macbeth,  whereas  I  ver\-  seldom 
read  Hamlet  (though  I  like  parts  of  it).  Now  I  am'  humbly 
and  sincerely  conscious  that  this  is  a  demerit  in  me  and  no't 
in  Hatulet;  and  yet  it  would  not  do  me  aiu  good  to  pretend 
that  I  like  Hamlet  as  much  as  Macbeth,  when,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  don't,  I  am  very  fond  of  simple  epics  and  of  ballad 
poetry,  from  the  Nibelungenlied  and  the  Roland  son- 
through^  "Chevy  Chase"  and  "Patrick  Spens"  and  "Twa 
Corbies"  to  Scott's  poems  and  Longfellow's  "Saga  of  King 
()laf"and"()there."  On  the  other  hand,  I  d.. n't  care  t;)  read 
dramas  as  a  rule;  I  cannot  read  them  with  enjo\  ineni  unless 
they  appeal  to  me  very  strongly.  I'hev  muit  almost  be 
.Eschylus  or  Kuripides,  (loethe  or  Molie're,  in  order  that  I 
may  not  feel  after  finishing  them  a  sense  of  virtuous  pride 
in  having  achieved  a  task.  \o\v  I  would  be  the  first  to 
deny  that  even  the  most  delightful  old  English  ballad  should 
be  put  on  a  par  with  any  one  of  scores  of  dramatic  works 
by  authors  whom  I  have  not  mentioned  ;  I  know  that  each 
of  these  dramatists  has  written  what  is  of  more  worth  than 
the  ballad  ;  only,  I  enjoy  the  ballad,  and  I  don't  enjoy  the 
drama;  and  therefore  the  ballad  is  better  for  me,  and  this 


I! 


■  f 


H 


3^4     rilliODORK    ROOSFA  KI/I"       AN    AlTOBUKiRAPHV 


I 

I'll 


fad  is  iidt  alttTcci  l)>  tin-  otlic-r  fart  ttial  my  own  sliort- 
o)iniiij,'s  arc  to  hlamr  in  tlic  matter.  I  still  i\ad  a  nuinberol 
Scott's  novels  o\tr  and  over  aj,ain,  ulicn-as  if  I  finish  any- 
thing by  Miss  Austen  I  have  a  feeling  that  duty  performed 
is  a  rainbow  to  the  soul.  But  other  bot,klovers  who  are  very 
close  kin  to  me,  and  whose  taste  I  know  to  be  better  than 
mine,  read  Miss  Austen  all  the  time  —  and,  moreover,  they 
are  very  kind,  and  never  piiy  me  in  too  oflFensive  a  manner 
for  not  reading  lier  myself. 

Aside  from  the  masters  of  literature,  there  are  all  kinds  of 
books  wliich  one  person  will  find  delightful,  and  which  he 
certainly  ought  not  to  surrender  just  because  nobody  else  is 
able  to  find  as  much  in  the  beloved  volume.  There  is  on 
our  book-shehes  a  little  pre-\ictorian  no\el  or  tale  called 
"The  Semi-.\tlached  Couple."  it  is  told  with  much  humor; 
it  is  a  story  of  gentlefolk  who  are  really  gentlefolk  ;  and  to  me 
it  is  altogether  delightful.  But  outside  the  members  of  my 
own  family  1  liave  never  met  a  human  being  who  had  even 
heard  of  it,  and  1  don't  suppose  I  ever  shall  meet  one.  I 
ofti'ii  enjoy  a  stor_\  by  some  living  author  so  much  that  I 
write  toteli  him  so  -or  totell  herso  ;  and  at  least  half  thetime 
I  regret  m\  action,  because  it  encourages  the  writer  to  believe 
that  the  public  shares  my  views,  and  he  then  finds  that  the 
public  doesn't. 

Books  are  all  very  well  in  their  way,  and  we  love  them  at 
Sagamore  Hill;  but  childrei  are  better  than  books.  Saga- 
more- Hill  is  one  of  threi-  neighboring  houses  in  which  small 
cousins  spent  \ery  happy  >ears  of  childhood.  In  the  three 
houses  there  were  at  one  time  sixteen  of  these  small  cousins, 
all  told,  and  once  we  ranged  them  in  order  of  size  and  took 
their  photoirraph.  Thert-  are  many  kinds  of  success  in  life 
worth  luiving.  It  is  exceedingly  interesting  and  attractive 
to  be  a  successful  business  man,  or  railroad  man,  or  farmer, 
or  a  successful  lawyer  or  doctor;  or  a  writer,  or  a  President, 
or  a  ranchman,  or  the  colonel  of  a  fighting  regiment,  or  to 
kill  grizzly  bears  and  lions.  But  for  unfiagging  interest 
and  enjovment.  a  household  of  children,  if  things  go  reason- 
ably well,  certainly  makes  all  other  forms  of  success  and 
achievement     lose    their    importance    by     comparison.     It 


OUTDOORS  AiND   INDOORS 


36s 


may  be  true  that  he  travels  farthest  who  travels  alone; 
but  the  goal  thus  reached  is  not  worth  reaching.  And  as  for 
a  life  deliberately  devoted  to  pleasure  as  an  end  —  why,  the 
greatest  happiness  is  the  happiness  that  comes  as  a  by- 
product of  striving  to  do  what  must  be  done,  even  though 
sorrow  is  met  in  the  doing.  There  is  a  bit  of  homely  phi- 
losophy, quoted  by  Squire  Bill  Widener,  of  Widener's  \'al- 
ley,  Virginia,  which  sums  up  one's  duty  in  life:  "  F)o  what 
you  can,  with  what  you've  got,  where  you  arc." 


r  J«* '  12' Hi^^lS 


TlIK    SlXfKKN    COISINS. 

The  country  is  the  place  for  children,  and  if  not  the 
country,  a  city  small  enough  so  that  one  can  get  out  into  the 
country.  When  our  own  children  were  little,  we  were  for 
several  winters  in  Washington,  and  each  Sunday  afternoon 
the  whole  family  spent  in  Rock  Creek  Park,  which  was  then 
very  real  country  indeed.  I  would  drag  one  of  the  children's 
wagons;  and  when  the  very  smallest  pairs  of  feet  grew  tired 
of  trudging  bravely  after  us,  or  of  racing  on  rapturous  side 
trips  after  flowers  and  other  treasures,  the  owners  would 
clamber  into  the  wagon.  One  of  these  wagons,  by  the  way, 
a  gorgeous  red  otu',  liad  "I'lxpress"  paititeil  on  it  in  gilt 
letters,  and  was  known  to  the  younger  cliildrcn  .t;  the 
'"spress"    wagon.     They    evidently    associated     the    color 


*l 


111 


366    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AX    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


with  the  term.  Once  while  we  were  at  Sagamore  something 
happened  to  the  cherished  '"spress"  wagon  to  the  distress 
of  the  children,  and  especially  of  the  child  who  owned  it. 
Their  mother  and  I  were  just  starting  for  a  drive  in  the 
buggy,  and  we  promised  the  bereaved  owner  that  we  would 
visit  a  store  we  knew  in  East  Norwich,  a  village  a  few  miles 
away,  and  bring  back  another  '"spress"  wagon.  When 
we  reached  the  store,  we  found  to  our  dismay  that  the 
wagon  which  we  had  seen  had  been  sold.  Wv  could  not 
bear  to  return  without  the  promised  gift,  for  we  knew  that 
the  brains  of  small  persons  are  much  puzzled  when  their 
elders  seem  to  break  promises.  Fortunately,  we  saw  in  the 
store  a  delightful  little  bright-red  chair  and  bright-red  table, 
and  these  we  brought  home  and  handed  solemnly  over  to 
the  expectant  recipient,  explaining  that  as  there  unfor- 
tunately was  not  a  "'spress"  wagon  we  had  brought  him  back 
a  '"spress"  chair  and  ""spress"  table.  It  worked  beauti- 
fully I  The  '"spress"  chair  and  table  were  received  with 
such  rapture  that  we  had  to  get  duplicates  for  the  other 
small  member  of  the  family  who  was  the  particular  crony 
of  the  proprietor  of  the  new  treasures. 

When  their  mother  and  I  returned  from  a  row,  we  would 
often  see  the  children  waiting  for  us,  running  like  sand- 
spiders  along  the  beach.  They  always  liked  to  swim  in 
company  with  a  grown-up  of  buoyant  temperament  and 
inventive  mind,  and  the  float  offered  limitless  opportunities 
for  enjoyment  while  bathing.  All  dutiful  parents  know  the 
game  of  "stage-coach";  each  child  is  given  a  name,  such  as 
the  whip,  the  nigh  leader,  the  off  wheeler,  the  old  lady  pas- 
senger, and,  under  penalty  of  paying  a  forfeit,  must  get 
up  and  turn  round  when  the  grown-up,  who  is  improvising 
a  thrilling  story,  mentions  that  particular  object;  and  when 
the  word  "stage-coach"  is  mentioned,  everybody  has  to  get 
up  and  turn  round.  Well,  we  used  to  play  stage-coach 
on  the  float  while  in  swimming,  and  instead  of  tamely  get- 
ting up  and  turning  rr)und,  the  child  whose  turn  it  was  had 
to  plunge  overboard.  When  I  mentioned  "stage-coach," 
the  water  fairly  foamed  with  \  igurously  kicking  iittk-  legs; 
and  then  there  was  alwavs  a  moment   of  interest  while   I 


Ol'TDOORS   WD    INDOORS 


3<>7 


i 


counted,  so  as  to  be-  sure  that  the  number  of  heads  that  came 
up  cf)rrespoiKled  with  the  number  of  children  vvlio  had  gone 
down. 

No  man  ()r  woman   will  iver  forget   the  lime  when  some 
child  lies  sick  ()f  a  disease  that  threatens  its  life.     Moreover, 
much  less  serious  sickness  is  unpleasant  enough  at  the  time! 
Looking  back,  however,  there  are  elements  of  ccmedy  in 
certain  of  the  less  serious  cases.      I  well  remember  one  such 
instance  which  occurred  when  we  were  living  in  Washington, 
in  a  small  house,  with  barely 
enough  room  for  everybody 
when    all    the    chinks    were 
filled.      Measles  descended 
on  the  household.     In   the 
effort  to  keep  the  children 
that   were    well    and    those 
that  were  sick  apart,  their 
mother  and  1  Iiad  to  camp 
out  in  improvised   fashion. 
When  the  eldest  small  boy 
was  getting  well,  and  had 
recovered  his  spirits,  1  slept 
on  a  sofa  beside  his  bed  — 
the  sofa  being  so  short  that 
my  feet  projected  over  any- 
how.     One    afternoon    the 
small  boy  was  given  a  toy 
organ    by    a    sympathetic    friend.      Xext    morning   early    I 
was  waked    to  find  the  small    boy  very  vivacious  and  re- 
questing   a    story.       Having    drowsily    told    the    story,    I 
said,  "Now,  father's  told  you  a  story',  so  you  amuse  your- 
self and  let  father  go  to  sleep";  to  which  the  small   boy 
responded   most  virtuously,   "Ves,   father  will  go  to  sleep 
and  I'll  play  the  organ,"  which  he  did,  at  a  distance  of  two 
feet  from  my  head.      Later  his  sister,  who  had  just  come 
down  with  the  measles,  was  put  into  the  same  room.     The 
small  boy  vvas  convalescing,  and  was  engaged  in  playing  on 
the  floor  with  some  tin  ships,  together  with  two  or  three 
pasteboard   monitors   and   rams  of  my  own   manufacture. 


<  oiiyr.Kht  hj  I-; 


'  <iirrl» 


I. 


3f.S     rilKODOKK    R(K)SK\Ki;i'  — AN    Ari'OBKKlRAlMIV 

He  was  ^'iviiig  a  vivid  rendering  of  Farragut  at  Mobile- 
Bay,  from  iiK-morirs  of  iiow  I  had  told  tlu-  story.  \Iy 
pasteboard  laiiis  ami  monitors  wvw  fasiiiiatiitg  if  a 
naval  architect  may  be  allowed  to  praise  his  own  work  - 
and  as  property  they  were  equally  divided  between  the 
little  girl  and  the  small  boy.  The  little  girl  looked  on  with 
alert  suspicion  from  the  bed,  for  she  was  not  yet  convales- 
cent enough  to  be  allowed  down  on  the  floor.  The  small 
boy  was  busily  reciting  the  phases  of  the  fight,  which  now 
approached  its  climax,  and  the  little  girl  evidently  suspected 
that  her  monitor  was  destined  to  play  the  part  of  victim. 
Little  boy.  ".\nd  then  they  steamed  bang  into  the 
monitor." 

Littlr  girl.     "Brother,  don't  you  sink  my  monitor  !" 
Little  boy    (without    heeding,   and    hurrying    toward    the 
climax).     "And  the  torpedo  went  at  the  monitor!" 
Little  girl.     "My  monitor  is  not  to  sink  I" 
Little  boy,  dramatically:  ".\nd  bang  the  monitor  sank  !" 
/.;■///(■  girl.      "It  didn't   do  any  such   thing.     My  monitor 
always  goes   to  bed   at   seven,   and   it's   now  quarter  past. 
My  monitor  was  in  bed  and  couldn't  sink  I" 

When  I  was  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Leonard 
Wood  and  I  used  often  \o  combine  forces  and  take  both 
families  of  children  out  to  walk,  and  occasionally  some  of 
their  playmates.  Leonard  Wood's  son,  I  found,  attributed 
the  paternity  of  all  of  those  not  of  his  own  family  to  me. 
Once  we  were  taking  the  children  across  Rock  Creek  on  a 
fallen  tree.  I  was  standing  on  the  middle  of  the  log  trying 
to  prevent  any  of  the  children  from  falling  off,  and  while 
making  a  clutch  at  one  peculiarly  active  and  heedless  child 
I  fell  off  myself.  As  I  emerged  from  the  water  I  heard  the 
little  Wood  bov  cal'ing  frantically  to  the  General:  "Oh! 
oh  !  The  father  '  nil  the  children  fell  into  the  creek  !"  — 
which  inadc  m^  like  an  uncommonh'  moist  patriarch. 

Of  course  the  children  took  much  interest  in  the  trophies 
I  occasionally  brought  back  from  my  hunts.  When  I 
started  for  my  regiment,  in  '9H,  the  stress  of  leaving  home, 
which  was  naturally  not  pleasant,  was  somewhat  lightened 
by  the  next  to  the  youngest  boy,  whose  ideas  of  what  was 


OUTDOORS   AM)    INDOORS 


3^'9 


about  to  happen  were  liaz\ ,  clasping  nu'  nuini  tlu-  Icirs 
witli  a  hcatninK  smile  and  sa\injr.  "And  is  ni\  father  p)in« 
to  the  war?  And  will  he  l)riim  nu-  ha(  k  a  Ix'ar:"  When 
some  five  months  later,  I  returned.  <.l  course  in  inv  uniform' 
this  little  boy  was  much  puzzled  as  to  my  ideiuitv',  although 
he  greeted  me  affably  with  "(iood  afternoon',  Colonel." 
Half  an  hour  later  some- 
body asked  him,  "Where's 
father  ?"  to  which  he  re- 
sponded, "I  don't  know; 
but  the  Colonel  is  taking 
a  bath." 

Of  course  the  children  an- 
thropomorphized —  if  that 
is  the  proper  term  their 
friends  of  the  animal  world. 
Among  these  friends  at  one 
period  was  the  baker's 
horse,  and  on  a  very  rain_\- 
day  I  heard  the  little  girl', 
who  was  looking  out  of  the 
window,  say,  with  a  nielan- 
choly  shake  of  her  liead, 
"Oh  !  there's  poor  Kraft's 
horse,  all  soppin'  wet  !" 

While  I  was  in  the  White 
House  the  youngest  boy  be- 
came an  habitiir  of  a  small 
and  rather  noisome  animal 
shop,  and  the  good-natured  owner  would  occasional!)  let  him 
take  pets  home  to  play  with.  On  one  occasion  1  was  holding 
a  conversation  with  one  of  the  leadeis  in  Congress,  Uncle 
Pete  Hepburn,  about  the  Railroad  Rate  Bill.  The  chil- 
dren were  strictly  trained  not  to  interrupt  business,  but  on 
this  particular  occasion  the  little  boy's  feelings  overcame 
him.  He  had  been  loaned  a  king-snake,  which,  as  all  nature- 
lovers  know,  is  not  only  a  useful  but  a  beautiful  snake, 
very  friendly  to  humsn  beings;  and  he  came  rushing  home 
to  show  the  treasure.     He  was  holding  it   inside  his  coat, 


CopyrlKlii  1)>  i:.  s  curil.- 
IMIMI  s 


'  i  >'i 


At 


370     lilKODORK    ROOSKVKL'I-  AN    AITOBKK'.RAIMIV 


and  it  contrived  to  wijjplc  partly  down  the  sleeve.  I'ncle 
IVte  Hepb\jrn  naturally  diil  not  understand  the  full  import 
of  what  tlu'  littU-  boy  was  saying  to  me  as  he  endeavored 
to  wriggle  out  of  iiis  jacket,  and  kindly  started  to  help  him 

-and  then  jumped  back  with  alacrit)-  as  the  small  boy 
and  the  snake  both  popped  out  of  the  jacket. 

There  could  be  no  healthier  and  pleasantcr  place  in  which 
to  bring  up  children  than  in  that  nook  of  t)ld-time  .\merica 
around  Sagamore  Hill.  Certainly  I  never  knew  small 
people  to  have  a  better  time  or  a  better  training  for  tlvr 
work  iji  after  life  than  the  three  families  of  cousins  at  Saga- 
more Hill.  It  was  real  country,  and  --  speaking  from  the 
somewhat  detached  point  of  view  of  the  masculine  parent 

-  I  should  say  there  was  just  the  proper  mixture  of  free- 
dom and  control  in  the  management  of  the  children.  They 
were  never  allowed  to  be  disobedient  or  to  shirk  lessons  or 
work;  and  they  were  encouraged  to  have  all  the  fun  possible. 
They  often  went  barefoot,  especially  during  the  many  hours 
passed  in  various  enthralling  pursuits  along  and  in  the  waters 
of  the  bay.  They  swam,  they  tramped,  they  boated,  they 
coasted  and  skated  in  winter,  they  were  intimate  friends 
with  the  cows,  chickens,  pigs,  and  other  live  stock.  They 
had  in  succession  two  ponies,  Cieneral  Cjrant  and,  when  the 
General's  legs  became  such  that  he  lay  down  too  often  and 
too  unexpectedly  in  the  road,  a  calico  pony  named  Algon- 
quin, who  is  still  living  a  life  of  honorable  leisure  in  the 
stable  and  in  the  pasture  -  where  he  has  to  be  picketed, 
because  otherwise  he  chases  the  cows.  Sedate  pony  Grant 
used  to  draw  the  cart  in  which  the  children  went  driving 
when  they  were  very  small,  the  driver  being  their  old  nurse 
Mame,  who  had  held  their  mother  in  her  arms  when  she 
was  born,  and  vho  was  knit  to  them  by  a  tie  as  close  as  any 
tie  of  blood.  I  doubt  whether  I  ever  saw  Mame  really 
oflFended  with  them  except  once  when,  out  of  pure  but  mis- 
understood affection,  they  named  a  pig  after  her.  They 
loved  pony  Grant.  Once  I  saw  the  then  little  boy  of  three 
hugging  pony  Grant's  fore  legs.  As  he  leaned  over,  his 
broad  straw  hat  tilted  on  end,  and  pony  Grant  meditatively 
munched   the  brim ;  whereupon  the  small   boy  looked  up 


OUTDOORS  AND   INDOORS 


371 


with  a  wail  of  anguish,  evidently  thinking  the  pony  had 
decided  to  treat  him  like  a  radish. 

The  children  had  pets  of  their  own,  too,  of  course.  Among 
them  guinea  pigs  were  the  stand-bys  -their  highly  unemo- 
tional nature  fits  them  for  companionship  with  adoring  but 
over-enthusiastic  young  masters  and  mistresses.  Then 
there  were  flying  squirrels,  and  kangaroo  rats,  gentle  and 
trustful,  and  a  badger  whose  temper  was  short  but  whose 
nature  was  fundamentally  friendly.  The  badger's  name  was 
Josiah  ;  the  particular  little 


boy  whose  property  he  was 
used  to  car'y  him  about, 
clasped  firmly  aiound  what 
would  have  been  his  waist 
if  he  had  had  any.  Inas- 
much as  when  on  the  ground 
the  badger  would  play  en- 
ergetic games  of  tag  with 
the  little  boy  and  nip  his 
bare  legs,  I  suggested  that 
it  would  be  uncommonly 
disagreeable  if  he  took  ad- 
vantage of  being  held  in  the 
little  boy's  arms  to  bite  his 
face  ;  but  this  suggestion  was 
repelled  with  scorn  as  an 
unworthy  assault  on  the 
character  of  josiah.  "He 
bites  legs  sometimes,  but  he  never  bites  faces,"  said 
the  little  boy.  We  also  had  a  young  black  bear  whom 
the  children  christened  Jonathan  Edwards,  partly  out 
of  compliment  to  their  mother,  who  was  descended  from 
that  great  Puritan  divine,  and  partly  because  the  bear 
possessed  a  temper  in  which  gloom  and  strength  were 
combined  in  what  the  children  regarded  as  Calvinistic 
proportions.  As  for  the  dogs,  of  course  there  were  many, 
and  durinir  their  lives  the\  were  intimate  and  \alued  famiiy 
friends,  and  their  deaths  were  household  tragedies.  One 
of  them,  a  large  yellow  animal  <,)f  several  good  breeds  and 


JOSIAII    AND  HIS    MaSTKK. 


m 


.i/.im 


Ii' 


f! 


,1/- 


■||||OIK)RK    l<()()SK\i;i;i'      AN    ALTOBKXIRAPHY 


valuable.'  rather  bccaiisr  of  psycliical  than  physical  traits, 
was  ikiiikJ  "Susan"  by  his  small  owiu-rs,  in  coinnu-moration 
of  another  retaiiuT,  a  white  cow;  the  fact  that  the  cow  and 
the  dog  were  not  of  the  sanu'  sex  being  treated  with  indif- 
fereiRi'.  Much  the  most  individual  of  the  dogs  and  the  one 
with  the  strongest  character  was  Sailor  Boy,  a  Chesapeake 
lJa>  dog.  Ill'  li;id  a  masti'rful  temper  and  a  strong  sense  of 
bot'ii  dignity  and  dut_\.  He  would  ne\er  let  the  other  dogs 
tight,  and  he  himself  never  fought  unless  circumstances 
imperativeh'  tlemanded  it  ;  but  he  was  a  murderous  animal 
when  he  did  tight.  He  was  not  only  e.\ceedingl\'  fond  of  the 
water,  as  wa,^  to  be  expected,  but  passionately  devoted  to 
gunpowder  in  every  form,  for  he  loved  firearms  and  fairly 
reveled  in  tlu'  Kourlh  of  July  celebrations  —  the  latter 
being  ratlier  hazardous  occasions,  as  the  children  strongly 
objectetl  to  any  "safe  and  sane"  element  being  injected  iiito 
them,  and  had  the  normal  number  of  close  shaves  with 
rockets,  Roman  candles,  and  firecrackers. 

One  of  the  stand-bys  for  enjo\inent,  especially  in  rainy 
weather,  was  the  old  barn.  This  had  been  built  nearh'  a 
century  pre\iously,  and  was  as  delightful  as  only  the  pleas- 
antest  kind  of  old  barn  can  be.  It  stood  at  the  meeting- 
spot  of  three  fences.  .\  faxorite  amusement  used  to  be  an 
obstacle  race  when  the  barn  was  full  of  hay.  The  con- 
testants wi're  timed  and  were  started  successive!)-  from  out- 
side the  door.  'i"lie\-  rushed  inside,  clambered  over  or  bur- 
rowed through  the  ha\-,  as  suited  them  best,  dropped  out  of 
a  place  wliert'  a  loose  board  had  come  oflF,  got  over,  through, 
or  under  llie  three  fences,  and  raced  back  to  the  starting- 
point.  W  hen  the\  were  little,  their  respective  fathers  were 
expected  als<i  to  take  part  in  the  f)bstacle  race,  and  when 
with  tln'  ad\aiict'  of  years  the  fathers  finally  refused  to  be 
contestants,  there  was  a  general  feeling  of  pained  regret 
among  the  children  at  such  a  decline  in  the  sporting  spirit. 

.Xnother  famous  place  for  handicap  races  was  Cooper's 
BlutT,  a  gigantic  >aiKl-bank  rising  from  the  edge  of  the  bay, 
a  mile  from  the  Iioum.  If  the  tide  was  high  there  was  an 
added  tluill.  f<>r  ^onu'  of  the  contestants  were  sure  to  run 
into   the   water. 


OITDOORS   AM)    INDOORS 


373 


As  soon  ;is  t  lie  lilt  Ic  l>'i\  >  K;iriifi.l  lo  suiiii  ilii\  ut  rr  alloucil 
lo  ^o  olT  1)\  iIhimscIn  fs  ill  roul>i);its  ami  i  Jiiip  out  loi  llir 
iii>;lit  aloii^'  till'  Soiiiul.  Soiiictiiiu's  I  wouKl  ^.m.  ajoiiu  su 
as  lo  lai<c'  tlic  siiiallcT  cliiidiiii.  Oiict-  a  scliooiui  was 
wrecked  on  a  point  lialf  a  dozeti  miles  awa_\ .  She  held 
together  well  for  a  season  or  two  after  ha\  iiig  l>een  cleared 
of  everything  down   to  the   timbers,   and   this  ga\e   us   the 


I'll!     0|i>]MIP     k\il      XKiilM)    nil     Oil)    Hmn 


chance  to  make  camping-out  trips  in  which  the  i.nrl>  could 
also  be  included,  for  we  put  them  to  slei'ji  in  the  wnck, 
while  the  boys  slept  on  the  shore;  squaw  picnics,  the  chil- 
dren called  them. 

.My  children,  when  young,  went  to  the  public  school  iiear 
us,  tiic  little  Cove  School,  as  it  is  called.  For  nearix  thirt\- 
years  we  have  given  the  Christmas  tree  to  th-'  school. 
Before  the  gifts  are  distributed  1  am  expected  to  make  an 
address,  which  is  always  mercifullx  short.  m\-  own  children 
liaving  impressed  upon  me  with  frank  sincerity  the  attitude 


174     IHKODOUK    ROOSKVKl/r      AN    Al  TOBUXIR APIIV 


of  otlKT  ihildrcn  to  addresses  of  this  kind  on  such  occasions. 
Tiifiv  are  of  course  performances  by  thi-  children  them- 
selves, while  all  of  us  parents  l(M)k  ailmiriiij;!)-  on,  each 
sympathi/in^  with  his  or  her  particular  offspring  in  the 
somewhat  wooden  recital  of  "Darius  (Ireen  and  his  Flying 
Machine"  or  "The  Mountain  and  the  Squirrel  had  a  Quar- 
rel." But  the  tree  and  the 
gifts  make  up  for  all  short- 
comings. 

We  had  a  sleigh  for  win- 
ter; hut  if,  when  there  was 
much  snow,  the  whole  fam- 
ily desired  to  go  somewhere, 
we  would  put  the  body  of 
the  farm  wagon  on  runners 
and  all  bundle  in  together. 
We  always  liked  snow  at 
Christmas  time,  and  the 
sleigh-ride  down  to  the 
church  on  Christmas  eve. 
One  of  the  hymns  always 
sung  at  this  Christmas  eve 
festival  begins,  "  It's  Christ- 
mas eve  on  the  river,  it's 
Christmas  eve  on  the  bay." 
All  good  natives  of  the  vil- 
lage firmly  believe  that  this 
hymn  was  written  here,  and 
with  direct  reference  to 
Oyster^  Bay;  although  if  such  were  the  case  the  word 
"river"  would  have  to  be  taken  in  a  hyperbolic  sense,  as 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  river  is  the  village  pond.  I 
used  to  share  this  belief  myself,  until  my  faith  was  shaken 
by  a  Denver  lady  who  wrote  that  she  had  sung  that  hymn 
when  a  child  in  \Iichigan,  and  that  at  the  present  time  her 
little  Denver  babies  also  loved  it,  although  in  their  case  the 
river  was  not  represented  by  even  a  village  pond. 

When  we  were  in  Washington,  the  children  usually  went 
with  their  mother  to  the  Episcopal  church,  while  I  went  to 


mm^m^mfm^mmm 

'"J 

t 

I'llK   SUM.I.   Bov   OK  Till     WiCITK    Hoisr. 


()ITDCX)RS   am:)    iND(K)RS 


375 


the  Dutch  Reformed.  But  if  any  child  misbehaved  itself, 
it  was  sometimes  sent  next  Sunday  to  church  with  me,  on 
the  theory  that  my  companionship  would  have  a  sedative 
effect  which  it  did,  as  I  and  the  child  walked  alonj;  with 
rather  constrained  politeness,  each  eyin>;  the  other  with 
watchful  readiness  for  the  unexpected.  On  one  occasion, 
when  the  child's  conduct  fell  just  short  of  warranting  such 
extreme  measures,  his  mother,  as  they  were  on  the  point 
of  entering  church,  concluded  a  homily  by  a  quotation  which 
showed  a  certain  haziness  of  raemory  concerning  the  mar- 
riage and  baptismal  services:  "No,  little  bo_\ ,  if  this  con- 
duct continues,  I  shall  think  that  you  neitlier  love,  honor,  nor 
obey  me  !"  However,  the  culprit  was  much  impressed  with 
a  sense  of  shcjrtcoming  as  to  the  obligations  he  had  under- 
taken ;  so  the  result  was  as  satisfactory  as  if  the  quotation 
had  been  from  the  right  service. 

As  for  the  education  of  the  cliildren,  there  was  of  course 
much  of  it  that  represented  downright  liard  work  and  drudg- 
ery. There  was  also  much  training  that  came  a,>  a  by-prod- 
uct and  was  perhaps  almost  as  valuable  —  as  a  sub- 
stitute but  as  an  addition.  After  their  supper,  e  children, 
when  little,  would  come  trotting  up  to  their  mother's  room 
to  be  read  to,  and  it  was  always  a  surprise  to  me  to  notice 
the  extremely  varied  reading  which  interested  them,  from 
Howard  Pyle's  "Robin  Hood,"  Marj  Alicia  Owen's  "X'ooiloo 
Tales,"  and  Joel  Chandler  Ha  iris's  "Aaron  in  the  Wild  Woods," 
to  "Lycidas"  and  "King  John."  If  their  mother  was  absent, 
I  would  try  to  act  as  vice-mother  -  a  poor  substitute,  I 
fear  —  superintending  the  supper  and  reading  aloud  after- 
wards. The  children  did  not  wish  me  to  read  the  books 
they  desired  their  mother  to  read,  and  I  usually  took  some 
such  book  as  "Hercward  the  Wake,"  or  "Guy  Mannering,"  Oi 
"The  Last  of  the  Mohicans"  or  else  some  story  about  a  man- 
eating  tiger,  or  a  man-eating  lion,  from  one  of  the  hunting 
books  in  my  library.  These  latter  stories  were  always  fa- 
vorites, and  as  the  authors  told  tlum  in  the  first  person,  my 
interested  auditors  grew  to  know  ihem  by  the  name  ot  the 
"I"  stories,  and  regard.-d  them  as  adventures  all  of  which 
happened  to  the  same  individual.     When  Selous,  the  Afri- 


37^'    niKODORK    R(M)SK\i;i;i'  -AN    AITOBKXJRAPHY 

can  liiiiitt  r,  \  isitid  us,  I  had  to  >r<-'t  him  to  tell  to  the  younger 
children  twn  or  three  (»l"  the  stories  with  which  they  were 
alread\-  lainiliar  t'rotn  my  reading;  and  as  Seloiis  is  a  most 
graphic  narrator,  and  always  enters  thoroughly  into  the 
tilling  not  onl\  ot  liiniself  hut  of  the  opposing  lion  or  buffalo, 
my  own  reiuKring  of  the  incidents  was  cast  entirely  into  the 
shade. 

Be.sidi's  proHting  h\  the  more  canonical  hooks  on  educa- 
tion, we  profited  h_\  certain  essays  and  articles  of  a  less 
orthodox  t\  pe.  I  wish  to  express  my  warmest  gratitude  for 
sucii  hooks  not  of  avowedly  didactic  purpose  as 
Laura  Riciianls's  hooks,  Josephine  Dodge  Daskam's  "Mad- 
ness of  Phihp."  Pahner  Cox's  "Queer  People,"  the  melodies 
of  Father  (Joose  and  Mother  Wild  Goose,  Flandreau's  "Mrs. 
Wliite's,"  M\ra  Keli> 's  stories  of  her  little  Kast  Side  pupils, 
and  MicIuNon's  "Madigans."  It  is  well  to  take  duties,  and 
lite  generall}-,  seriousl)'.  It  is  also  well  to  rememher  that  a 
sense  of  humor  i^  a  healthy  anti-scorbutic  to  that  portentous 
seriousness  which  defeats  its  own  purpose. 

Occasioiiall)  hits  of  self-education  proved  of  unexpected 
iielp  to  the  children  in  later  \ears.  Like  other  children,  they 
Wen-  apt  to  taki'  to  bed  with  them  treasures  which  they  par- 
ticularl)  esteemed.  One  of  the  boys,  just  before  his  sixteenth 
birtlula> ,  went  moose  hunting  with  the  family  doctor,  and 
i  lose  personal  friend  of  the  entire  family,  Alexander  Lambert. 
<  )nce  night  o\  ertook  them  before  the\-  camped,  and  they  had 
ti.  lie  down  just  where  the)  were.  .\ext  morning  Dr.  Lam- 
hiil  ratlu  r  in\  iously  congratulated  the  boy  on  the  fact  that 
Mollis  and  roots  evidentl\  did  not  interfere  with  the  sound- 
ness o|  his  sleep;  to  which  the  boy  responded,  "Well,  Doc- 
tor, \ou  see  it  isn't  very  long  since  I  used  to  take  fourteen 
china  animals  to  bed  with  me  every  night!" 

As  the  children  grew  up,  Sagatiiore  Hill  remained  dclight- 
tul  for  them.  There  were  picnics  and  riding  parties,  there 
were  dances  in  the  north  room  --  sometimes  fancy  dress 
dances  —  and  open-air  plays  on  the  green  tennis  court  of 
one  of  the  cousin's  houses.  The  children  are  no  longer 
ihildieii  now.  Most  of  them  are  men  and  women,  working 
out  their  own  fates  in  the  big  world;  some  in  our  own  land, 


{)II'I'1)(M)KS    AND    I\I)(M)KS 


377 


others  across  the  ureal  oceans  or  where  the  Southern  Cross 
blazes  ill  the  tropic  ni^jlits.  Some  of  them  have  children 
of  their  own  ;  some  are  working  at  <n\e  thin^'.  some  at  another  ; 
in  cable  ships,  in  business  oHtces,  in  tactories.  in  newspaper 
offices,  buikiin^  steel 
bridges,  bossing' 
gravel  trains  aiul 
steam  shovels, or  lay- 
ing tracks  and  ^.uper- 
in  tending  freight 
traffic.  The)  have 
had  their  shari'  of  ac- 
cidents and  escapes ; 
as  I  write,  word 
comes  from  a  far-ofT 
land  that  one  ol 
them.  who;:.  *"'  t  h 
Bullock  used  t  call 
"■  Kim  "  because  he 
was  the  friend  of  all 
mankind,  while  boss- 
ing a  dangerous  but 
necessary  steel  struc- 
tural job  has  had  two 
ribs  and  two  back 
teeth  broken,  and  is 
back  at  work.  Thex 
have  known  and  the\ 
will  know  joy  and 
sorrow,  triumph  and 
temporary    defeat. 

But    I    believe   the\-    are   all   the  better  off  because 
happy  and  healthy  childhood. 

It  is  impossible  to  win  the  great  prizes  of  life  without 
running  risks,  and  the  greaii>t  of  all  prizes  ;ire  those  con- 
nected with  th''  iioine.  \o  father  anJ  mother  can  hope  to 
I'scape  sorrow  and  anxiety,  and  thete  .tie  dieaiitul  moments 
when  death  eoine>  \  er\  near  those  we  love,  even  il  lor  the 
time  being  it  passes  b)  .      Bui  life  is  a  great  adventure,  and 


Till    1  iR>r  (iRwiH  iiii.i>   \r  S\i.\M<iKi    IIii.i, 


their 


hi 


37«    THEODORE    R(X)S':VELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


« 

I')' 


the  worst  of  all  fears  is  the  fear  of  living.  There  are  many- 
forms  of  success,  many  forms  of  triumph.  But  there  is  no 
other  success  that  in  any  shape  or  way  approaches  that  which 
is  open  to  most  of  the  many,  many  men  and  women  who  have 
the  right  ideals.  These  are  the  men  and  the  women  who 
sec  that  it  is  the  intimate  and  homely  things  that  count 
most.  They  are  the  men  and  women  who  have  the  courage 
to  strive  for  the  happiness  which  comes  only  with  labor  and 
effort  nnd  self-sacrifice,  and  only  to  those  whose  joy  in  life 
springs  in  part  from  power  of  work  and  sense  of  duty. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  presidency;   making  an  old  party  progressive 

Ox  September  6,  1901,  President  McKinley  was 
shot  by  an  Anarchist  in  the  city  of  Buffalo.  I 
went  to  Buffalo  at  once.  The  President's  condition 
seemed  to  be  improving,  and  after  a  day  or  two 
we  were  told  that  he  was  practically  out  of  danger.  I 
then  joined  my  family,  who  were  in  the  Adirondacks,  near 
the  foot  of  \Iount  Tahawus.  A  day  or  two  afterwards 
we  took  a  long  tramp  through  the  forest,  and  in  the  after- 
noon I  climbed  Mount  Tahawus.  After  reaching  the  top 
I  had  descended  a  few  hundred  feet  to  a  shelf  of  land  where 
there  was  a  little  lake,  when  I  saw  a  guide  coming  out  of 
the  woods  on  our  trail  from  below.  I  felt  at  once  that  he 
had  bad  news,  and,  sure  enough,  he  Iianded  me  a  telegram 
saying  that  the  President's  condition  was  much  worse  and 
that  I  must  come  to  Buffalo  immediately.  It  was  late  in 
the  afternoon,  and  darkness  had  fallen  by  the  time  I  reached 
the  clubhouse  where  we  were  staying.  It  was  some  time 
afterwards  before  I  could  get  a  wagon  to  drive  me  out  to  the 
nearest  railway  station,  Xorth  Creek,  some  forty  or  fifty 
miles  distant.  The  roads  were  the  ordinary  wilderness 
roads  and  the  night  was  dark.  But  we  changed  horses  two  or 
three  times  —  when  I  say  "we"  I  mean  the  driver  and  I,  as 
there  was  no  one  else  with  us  —  and  reached  the  station  just 
at  dawn,  to  learn  from  Mr.  Loeb,  who  had  a  special  train 
waiting,  that  the  President  was  dead.  Tliat  evening  I  took 
the  oath  of  office,  in  the  house  of  Ansley  Wilcox,  at  Buffalo. 
On  three  previous  occasions  the  \'ice-President  had  suc- 
ceeded to  the  Presidency  on  the  death  of  the  President. 
In  each  case  there  had  been  a  reversal  of  party  policy, 
and  a  nearly  immediate  and  nearly  complete  change  in  the 
personnel  of  the  higher  offices,  especially  the  Cabinet.     I 

379 


I  riiiri  .1  iKiinuin;  In    Icilili  >   S:r»,'Oiir      I'hnti.tTipli  In   lian.-f-U  .IoIiiiuhi 

I'm  SIDI  NT    kuDSI  \  III, 

Thi>,  i*.rtrail  uf  riii'.i<l,,ri   R.",M-vrlt,  liy  Jchn  S.  S:irk'ciit.  i-  :d  the  Whitu  Houst 


Till':  i>rksiim:nlv 


3«> 


had  never  fell  thai  this  was  wise  from  any  standpoint. 
If  a  man  is  til  to  be  President,  he  will  speedily  so  mipress 
himself  in  the  office  that  the  policies  pursued  will  he  his  any- 
how, and  he  will  not  have  to  bother  as  to  whether  he  is 
changing  them  or  not;  while  c;s  regards  the  offices  under 
him,  the  important  thing  for  him  is  that  his  subordinates 
shall  make  a  success  in  handling  their  several  departments. 
The  subordinate  is  sure  to  desire  to  make  a  success  of  his 
department  for  his  ..wn  sake,  and  if  he  is  a  ht  man,  whose 
views  on  public  policv  ari'  sound,  and  wiiose  abilities  entitle 
him  to  his  position,  lie  will  d<.  excelleiitU  undir  almost  any 
chief  with  the  same  purposes. 

I    at   once   announced   that    1    would  continue   unchanged 
.McKinley's    policies    for   the    honor    and    prosperity    ot    the 
country,  and  I  asked  all  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  to  sta>  . 
There  were  no  chamres  made  among  them  save  as  changes 
were  made  among  their  successors  whom  1  myself  appointed. 
I  continued  Mr.  McKinlev's  policies,  changing  and  develop- 
ing  them   and   adding'   new    policies   only    as   the   questions 
before  the  public  chamred  and  as  the  needs     .   the  public 
developed.     Some  of  mv  friends  sh.x.k  their  h     ds  over  t  lis, 
tellint;  me  that  the  men   1   retained  would  no      -e  "loyal  K) 
me  "and  that    1   would  seem  as  if   1   were  '"a  pale  cop\-  ot 
McRinlev."      I   told   (hem   that    1    was  not    nervous  on   tins 
score,   and   that   if  the   men    I    retained   were   l"yal   to  then- 
work  thev  would  be  uiving  me  the  lo\alty  for  which  1  most 
cared;  and  that  if  thev  were  not.  I  would  change  them  anv- 
how;  and  that   as  for  being  "a   pale  copy  of  McKmley, 
I  was  not  primarilv  concerned  with  either  toll..wing  ..r  not 
following  in  his  footsteps,  but   in   facing  the  new  problems 
that  arose;  and  that  if  1  were  competent  1  would  find  ample 
opportunitx    to  show  mv  competence  In    my  deeds  without 
worrving  mvself  as  to  how  to  convince  people  ot  the  tact. 
FoV  the  reasons  1  have  alreadv  given  in  m\  chapter  on  the 
(lovernorship  of  New  ^'ork.  the  Republican  party    which  in 
the  davs  of  Abraham    Lincoln  was  founded   as   the   radical 
progressive  partv  of  the  Nati.iU.  had  been  obliged  durmg  the 
last  decade  of  th'e  niivternth  century  t..  uphold  tlu'  interests 
of  popular  uovernmeiit  against  a  foolish  and  illjudged  mock- 


382     THKODORK    ROOSE\KLT-AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

radicalism.     It  remained  the  Xationalist  as  against  the  par- 
ticularun  or  State's  rights  party,  and  in  so  far  it  remained 
absolutely  sound;  for  little  permanent  good  can  be  done  by 
any  party  which  worships  the  State's  rights  fetish  or  which 
fails  to  regard  the  State,  like  the  county  or  the  municipality, 
as  merely  a  convenient  unit  for  local  self-government,  whi'le 
in  all  National  matters,  of  importance  to  the  whole  people, 
the  Nation  is  to  be  supreme  over  State,  county,  and  town 
alike.      But    the  State's  rights  fetish,  although  still  eflFect- 
ively  used  at  certain  times  by  both  courts  and  Congress 
to  block   needed   .National    legislation  directed  against   the 
huge  corporations  or  in  the  interests  of  workingmen,  was  not 
a  prime  issue  at  the  time  of  which  I  speak.     In  1896,  1898, 
and    1900  the  campaigns  were  waged  on   two  great  moral 
issies:  (I)    the    imperative    need    of   a    sound    and    honest 
currency;  (2)   the  need,  after   1898,  of  meeting  in   manful 
and   straightforward    fashion   the  extraterritorial    problems 
arising  from  the  Spanish  War.     On  these  great  moral  issues 
the   Republican   party   was   right,   and   the  men   who  were 
opposed  to  It,  and  who  claimed  to  be  the  radicals,  and  their 
allies  among  the  sentimentalists,  were  utterlv  and  hopelessly 
wrong      This     had,     regrettably    but    perhaps    inevitably, 
tended  to  throw  the  party  into  the  hands  not  merelv  of  the 
conservatives  but  of  the  reactionaries;  of  men  who,  some- 
times for  personal  and  improper  reasons,  but  more  often  with 
entire  sincerity  and  uprightness  of  purpose,  distrusted  any- 
thing that  was  progressive  and  dreaded  radicalism.     These 
men  still  from  force  of  habit  applauded  what  Lincoln  had 
done  in  the  way  of  radical  dealing  with  the  abuses  of  his  dav  ; 
but  they  did  not  apply  the  spirit  in  which  Lincoln  worked 
to  the  abuses  of  their  own  day.     Both  houses  of  Congress 
were  controlled  by  these  men.     Their  leaders  in  the  Sc-nate 
were  Messrs.  Aldrich  and  Hale.     The  Speaker  of  the  House 
when  1  became  President  was  Mr.  Henderson,  but  in  a  little 
"V7,^  ^'p^J  ^^'  '^'''/  ^"^■^•^■t'Jt'J  hy  Mr.  Cannon,  who,  although 
widely  differing  from  Senator  Aldrich  in  matters  of  detail, 
represented  the  same  type  of  public  sentiment.     There  were 
many  points  o„  which  I  agreed  with  Mr.  Cannnn  and  Mr. 
-Aldrich,  and  some  points  on  which  I  agreed  with  Mr.  Hale. 


THK   PRESIDENCY 


383 


I  made  a  resolute  effort  to  pet  on  with  all  three  and  vvith 
their  followers,  and  I  have  no  question  that  they  made  an 
equally  resolute  effort  to  get  on  with  nie.  We  succeeded 
in  working  together,  although  with  increasing  friction, 
for  some  years,  I  pushing  forward  and  they  hanging  back. 
Gradually,  however,  I  was  forced  to  abandon  the  effort  to 
persuade  them  to  come  my  way,  and  then  I  achieved  results 
only  by  appealing  over  the  heads  of  the  Senate  and  House 
leaders  to  the  people,  who  were  the  masters  of  both  of  us. 
I  continued  in  this  way  to  get  results  until  almost  the  close 
of  my  term  ;  and  the  Republican  party  became  once  more 
the  progressive  and  indeed  the  fairly  radical  progressive 
party  of  the  Nation.  When  my  successor  was  chosen,  how- 
ever, the  leaders  of  the  House  and  Senate,  or  most  of  them, 
felt  that  it  was  safe  to  come  to  a  break  with  me,  and  the 
last  or  short  session  of  Congress,  held  between  the  election 
of  my  successor  and  his  inauguration  four  months  later,  saw 
a  series  of  contests  between  the  majorities  in  the  two  houses 
of  Congress  and  the  President,  —  myself,  -  quite  as  bitter  as  if 
they  and  I  had  belonged  to  opposite  political  parties.  How- 
ever, I  held  my  own.  I  was  not  able  to  push  through  the 
legislation  I  desired  during  these  four  months,  but  I  was  able 
to  prevent  them  doing  anything  I  did  not  desire,  or  undoing 
anything  that  I  had  already  succeeded  in  getting  done. 

There  wx^re,  of  course,  many  Senators  and  members  of  the 
lower  house  with  whom  up  to  the  very  last  i  continued  to 
work  in  hearty  accord,  and  with  a  growing  understanding. 
I  have  not  the  space  to  enumerate,  as  I  would  like  to,  these 
men.  P'or  many  years  Senator  Lodge  had  been  my  close 
personal  and  political  friend,  with  whom  I  discussed  all  public 
questions,  that  arose,  usually  with  agreement;  and  f)ur 
intimately  close  relations  were  of  course  unchanged  by  my 
entry  into  the  White  House.  He  was  of  all  our  public  men 
the  man  who  had  made  the  closest  and  wisest  study  of  our 
foreign  relations,  and  more  clearly  than  almost  any  other 
man  he  understood  the  vital  fact  that  the  efficiency  of 
our  navy  conditioned  our  national  efficiency  in  foreign  affairs. 
Anything  relating  to  our  international  relations,  from 
Panama  and  the  navy  to  the  Alaskan  boundary  question. 


i^i 


3S4     I'UKOnORK    ROOSFAKLT  — A\    AITOBKK^RAPFIV 


tlic  Aljjfciras  lU'^oliatioiis,  or   the   jn-acc  of   Portsmouth,    \ 
was  certain   to   ilisciiss  with   Si'iiator   Lodge   and   also  with 
certain  other  members  of  Congress,  siicli  as  Senator  Turner 
of  Washington  and   Representative  Hilt  of  lUinois.     Any- 
thing rehiting  to  labor  legislation  and  to  measures  for  con- 
trolling big  business  or  efficiently  regulating  the  giant  rail- 
way systems,  I  was  certain  to  discuss  with  Senator  Dolliver  or 
Congressman  Hepburn  or  Congressman  Cooper.     With  men 
like  Senator  Beveridge,  Congres!-man  (afterwards  Senator) 
Dixon,  and  Congressman  Murdock,  I  was  apt  to  discuss  pretty 
nearly  evervlhing  relating  to  either  our  internal  or  our  exter- 
nal  affairs     There  were  many,  many  others.     The  present 
President  of  the  Senate,  Senator  Clark,  of  .Arkansas,  was  as 
fearless  and  high-minded  a  representative  of  the  people  of  the 
L  nited  States  as  I  ever  dealt  with.     He  was  one  of  the  men 
who  combined  loyalty  to  his  own  State  with  an  equally  keen 
loyalty   to   the  people  of  all   the   Unit<d   States.     He   was 
politically   opposed   to   me;  but   when   the   interests  of  the 
country  were  at  stake,  he  was  incapable  f)f  considering  party 
differences;  and   this   was  especially  his  attitude  in  inter- 
national matters        including  certain  treaties  which  most  of 
his   party  colleagues,  with   narrow  lack  of  patriotism,  and 
complete   subordination   of   National    to   factional   interest, 
opposed.      I  iiave  never  anywhere  met  finer,  more  faithful, 
more   disinterested,   and   more   loyal    public   servants    than 
Senator  ().  H.  Piatt,  a  Republican,  from  Connecticut,  and 
Senator    Cockrell,     a     Democrat,     from     Missouri.      They 
were   already   old    men    wlien    I    came    to   the    Presidency; 
and  doubtless  there  were  points  on  which  I  seemed  to  them 
to  be  extreme  and  radical;  but  eventually  they  found  that 
our  tiiotives  and  beliefs  were  the  same,  and  they  did  all  in 
their  power  to  help  any  movement  that  was  for  the  interest 
of  (Hir  people  as  a  whole.     I  had  met  them  when  I  was  Civil 
Service  Commissioner  and  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Xavy. 
All  I  ever  had  to  do  with  either  was  to  convince  him  that  a 
given  measure  I  championed  was  right,  and  he  then  at  once 
did  all  he  could  to  have  it  put  into  eflFect.     If  I  could  not 
convince  them,  why  !  that  was  my  fault,  or  my  misfortune; 
but  if  I  could  convince  them,  I  never  had  to  think  again  as 


THE  PRESIDENCY 


385 


to  whether  they  would  or  would  not  support  me.  There 
were  many  other  men  of  mark  in  both  houses  with  whom 
I  could  work  on  some  points,  whereas  on  others  we  had  to 
differ.  There  was  one  powerful  leader  —  a  burly,  forceful 
man,  of  admirable  trails  —  who  had,  however,  been  trained 
in  the  post-bellum  school  of  business  and  politics,  so  that  his 
attitude  towards  life,  quite  unconsciously,  reminded  me  a 
little  of  Artemus  Ward's  view  of  the  Tower  of  London  — 
''  If  I  like  it,  I'll  buy  it."  There  was  a  big  governmental  job 
in  which  this  leader  was  much  interested,  and  in  reference 
to  which  he  always  wished  me  to  consult  a  man  whom  he 
trusted,  whom  I  will  call  Pitt  Rodney.  One  day  I  answered 
him,  "The  trouble  with  Rodney  is  that  he  misestimates 
his  relations  to  cosmos";  to  which  he  responded,  "Cosmos 
—  Cosmos  .'  Never  heard  of  him.  You  stick  to  Rodney. 
He's  your  man  !"  Outside  of  the  public  servants  there 
were  multitudes  of  men,  in  newspaper  offices,  in  magazine 
offices,  in  business  or  the  professions  or  on  farms  or  in  shops, 
who  actively  supported  the  policies  for  which  I  stood  and 
did  work  of  genuine  leadership  which  was  quite  as  effective 
as  any  work  done  by  men  in  public  office.  Without  the 
active  support  of  these  men  I  would  have  been  powerless. 
In  particular,  the  leading  newspaper  correspondents  at 
Washington  were  as  a  whole  a  singularly  able,  trustworthy, 
and  public-spirited  body  of  men,  and  the  most  useful  of 
all  agents  in  the  fight  for  efficient  and  decent  government. 
As  for  the  men  under  me  in  executive  office,  I  could  not 
overstate  the  debt  of  gratitude  I  owe  them.  From  the 
heads  of  the  departments,  the  Cabinet  officers,  down,  the 
most  striking  feature  of  the  Administration  was  the  devoted, 
zealous,  and  efficient  work  that  was  done  as  soon  as  it  became 
understood  that  the  one  bond  of  interest  among  all  of  us 
was  the  desire  to  make  the  Government  the  most  effective 
instrument  in  advancing  the  interests  of  the  people  as  a 
whole,  the  interests  of  the  average  men  and  women  of  the 
United  States  and  of  their  children.  I  do  not  think  I  over- 
state the  case  when  I  say  thai  most  of  the  men  who  did  the 
best  work  under  me  felt  that  ours  was  a  partner  '  ip,  that 
we  all  stood  on  the  same  level  of  purpose  and  service,  and 


■ff! 


2C 


3S6    THKODORK    R(M)SK\  IILT  -  AN    MTOBIOGRAPHY 


that  it  mattiivd  not  what  position  any  one  of  us  held  so 
U)n^'  as  in  that  posiiion  iu-  ^mvc-  thi-  vc-ry  bc-st  that  was  in 
him.  \\\-  workid  vi-iy  hard;  hut  I  made  a  point  of  getting 
a  couple  of  hours  off  eacli  day  for  equally  vigorous  play. 
The  men  with  whom  I  then  played,  whom  we  laughingly 
grew  to  call  the  "Tennis  Cabinet,"  have  been  mentioned  in 
a  previous  chapter  of  this  book  in  connection  with  the  gift 
they  gave  me  at  tlie  last  breakfast  which  they  took  at  the 
\\  hite  House.  There  were  many  others  in  the  public 
service  under  me  with  whom  1  happened  not  to  play,  but 
who  did  their  share  of  our  common  work  just  as  effectively 
as  it  was  done  by  us  who  did  play.  Of  course  nothingcould 
have  been  done  in  my  Administration  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  zeal,  intelligence,  masterful  ability,  and  downright  hard 
labor  of  these  men  in  countless  positions  under  me.  I  was 
helpless  to  do  anything  except  as  my  thoughts  and  orders 
were  translated  into  action  by  them  ;  and,  moreover,  each 
of  them,  as  he  grew  specially  tit  for  his  job,  used  to  suggest 
to  me  the  right  thought  to  have,  and  the  right  order  to  give, 
ccjncerning  that  jt)b.  It  is  oi  course  hard  for  me  to  speak 
with  cold  and  dispassionate  partiality  of  these  men,  who 
were  as  close  to  me  as  were  the  men  of  my  regiment.  But 
the  outside  observers  best  fitted  to  pass  judgment  about 
them  felt  as  I  did.  .\t  the  end  of  my  .Administration  Mr. 
Bryce,  the  British  .\mbassador,  told  me  that  in  a  long  life, 
during  which  he  had  studied  intimately  the  government  of 
many  different  countries,  he  had  never  in  any  country  seen 
a  more  eager,  high-minded,  and  efficient  set  of  public  serv- 
ants, men  more  useful  and  more  creditable  to  their  country, 
than  the  men  then  doing  the  work  of  the  American  CJovern- 
ment  in  Washington  and  in  the  field.  I  repeat  this  state- 
ment with  the  permission  of  Mr.  Bryce. 

.\t  about  the  same  time,  or  a  little  before,  in  the  spring  of 
1908.  there  appeared  in  the  I'^nglish  Fortni'^htly  Ri'vir.c  an  arti- 
cle, evidently  by  a  competent  eye  witness,  setting  forth  more 
in  detail  the  same  views  to  which  the  British  Ambassador 
thus  privately  gave  expression.      It  was  in  part  as  foil'  .vs  : 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  has  gathered  around  him  a  body  oi  pub- 
lic servants  who  are  nowhere  surpassed,  I  question  whether 


It:. 


From  a  pulutlug  by  K.  HupKiuauii  Smith 

The  Wuirt;  Hoist  fkum  im.  Gakui.n. 


;88    THKODORK    ROOSKV  KLT  —  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


they  arc  anywhere  equaled,  for  efficiency,  self-sacrifice,  and 
an  absolute  devotion  to  their  country's  interests.  Many 
of  them  are  poor  men,  without  private  means,  who  have 
voluntarily  abandoned  high  professional  ambitions  and 
turned  their  backs  on  the  rewards  of  business  to  serve  their 
country  on  salaries  that  are  not  merely  inadequate,  but 
indecently  so.  There  is  not  one  of  them  who  is  not  con- 
stantly assailed  by  offers  of  positions  in  the  world  of  com- 
merce, finance,  and  the  law  that  would  satisfy  every  material 
ambition  with  which  he  began  life.  There  is  not  one  of 
them  who  could  not,  if  he  chose,  earn  outside  Washington 
from  ten  to  twenty  times  the  income  on  which  he  economizes 
as  a  State  official.  But  these  men  are  as  indifferent  to  money 
and  to  the  power  that  money  brings  as  to  the  allurements  of 
Newport  and  New  York,  or  to  merely  personal  distinctions, 
or  to  the  commercialized  ideals  which  the  great  bulk  of 
their  fellow-countrymen  accept  without  question.  They  are 
content,  and  more  than  content,  to  sink  themselves  in  the 
National  service  without  a  thought  of  private  advancement, 
and  often  at  a  heavy  sacrifice  of  worldly  honors,  and  to 
toil  on  .  .  .  sustained  by  their  own  native  impulse  to  make 
of  patriotism  an  efficient  instrument  of  public  betterment." 

The  American  public  rarely  appreciate  the  high  quality 
of  tne  work  done  by  some  of  our  diplomats  —  work,  usually 
entirely  unnoticed  and  unrewarded,  which  redounds  to  the 
interest  and  the  honor  of  all  of  us.  The  most  useful  man  in 
the  entire  diplomatic  service,  during  my  presidency,  and  for 
many  years  before,  was  Henry  White;  and  I  say  this  having 
in  mind  the  high  quality  of  work  done  by  such  admirable  am- 
bassadors and  ministers  as  Bacon,  Meyer,  Straus,  O'Brien, 
Rockhill,  and  Egan,  to  name  only  a  few  among  many. 
When  I  left  the  presidencv  White  was  Ambassador  to 
France;  shortly  afterwards  he  was  removed  by  Mr.  Taft, 
for  reasons  unconnected  with  the  good  of  the  service. 

The  most  important  factor  in  getting  the  right  spirit  in 
my  Administration,  next  to  the  insistence  upon  courage, 
honesty,  and  a  genuine  democracy  of  desire  to  serve  the 
plain  people,  was  my  insistence  upon  the  theory  that  the 
executive  power  was  limited  only  by  specific  restrictions  and 


THE   PRKSIDF-.XCY 


3«9 


prohibitions  appcarinj;  in  the  Constitution  or  imposed  by  the 
Congress  under  its  Constitutional  powers.  Xly  view  was 
that  every  executive  othcer,  and  above  all  every  executive 
officer  in  high  position,  was  a  steward  of  the  people  bound 
actively  and  affirmatively  to  do  all  he  could  for  the  people, 
and  not  to  content  himself  with  the  negative  merit  of  keeping 
his  talents  undamaged  in  a  napkin.  I  declined  to  adopt 
the  view  that  what  was  imperatively  necessary  for  the  Na- 
tion could  not  be  done  by  the  I'resident  unless  he  could 
find  some  specific  authorization  to  do  it.  My  belief  was  that 
it  was  not  only  his  right  but  his  duty  to  do  anything  that  the 
needs  of  the  Nation  demanded  unless  such  action  was  for- 
bidden by  the  Constitution  or  by  the  laws.  I'nder  this 
interpretation  of  executive  power  I  did  and  caused  to  be 
done  many  things  not  previously  done  by  the  President  and 
the  heads  of  the  departments.  I  did  not  usurp  power, 
but  I  did  greatly  broaden  the  use  of  executive  power.  In 
other  words,  I  acted  for  the  public  welfare,  I  acted  for  the 
common  well-being  of  all  our  people,  whenever  and  in  what- 
ever manner  was  necessary,  unless  prevented  by  direct 
constitutional  or  legislative  prohibition.  I  did  not  care  a 
rap  for  the  mere  form  and  show  of  power;  I  cared  immensely 
for  the  use  that  could  be  made  of  the  substance.  The 
Senate  at  one  time  objected  to  my  communicating  with  them 
in  printing,  preferring  the  expensive,  foolish,  and  labo- 
rious practice  of  writing  out  the  messages  by  hand.  It  was 
not  possible  to  return  to  the  outworn  archaism  of  hand 
writing ;  but  we  endeavored  to  have  the  printing  made  as 
pretty  as  possible.  Whether  I  communicated  with  the  Con- 
gress in  writing  or  by  word  of  mouth,  and  whether  the  writing 
was  by  a  machine,  or  a  pen,  were  equally,  and  absolutely, 
unimportant  matters.  The  importance  lay  in  what  I  said 
and  in  i.ie  heed  paid  to  what  I  said.  So  as  to  my  meeting 
and  consulting  Senators,  Congressmen,  politicians,  finan- 
ciers, and  labor  men.  I  consulted  all  who  wished  to  see 
me  :  and  if  I  wished  to  see  any  one,  I  sent  for  him  ;  and  where 
the  consultation  took  place  was  a  matter  of  supreme  unim- 
portance. I  consulted  every  man  with  the  sincere  hope 
that  I  could  profit  by  and  follow  his  advice ;  I  consulted 


390    THKODORK    ROOSKVKIT  -  AN   AITOBICXIRAPHY 


every  mrmlHT  of  Coti^rcss  who  wislu-d  to  In-  consulted, 
hoping  to  be  able  to  come  to  an  agreetneiit  of  action  with 
him ;  and  I  always  finally  acted  as  my  conscience  and  com- 
mon sense  bade  me  act. 

About  appointments  I  was  obliged  by  the  Constitution 
to  consult  the  Senate;  and  the  lonjf-establishcd  custom  of 
the  Senate  meant  that  in  practice  this  consultation  was  with 
individual  Senators  and  even  with  bi);  politicians  who  stood 
behind  the  Senators.  I  was  only  one-h"  '  the  appointing 
power;  I  nominatetl ;  but  the  Senate  coi..  rmed.  In  prac- 
tice, by  what  was  called  "the  courtesy  of  the  Senate,"  the 
Senate  normally  refused  to  confirm  any  appointment  if  the 
Senator  from  the  State  objected  to  it.  In  exceptional  cases, 
where  I  could  arouse  public  attention,  I  could  force  through 
the  appointment  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  Senators; 
in  all  ordinary  cases  this  was  impossible.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Senator  could  of  course  do  nothing  for  any  man 
uiik'ss  I  chose  to  nominate  him.  In  consecuence  the  Con- 
stitution itself  forced  the  President  arid  the  Senators  from 
each  State  to  come  to  a  working  agreement  on  the  appoint- 
ments in  and  from  that  State. 

My  course  was  to  insist  on  absolute  fitness,  including 
honesty,  as  a  prerequisite  to  every  appointment ;  and  to 
remove  onl>  for  good  cause,  and,  '\h\.  i  there  was  such 
cause,  to  refuse  even  to  discuss  with  the  Senator  in  interest 
the  unfit  servant's  retention.  Subject  to  these  considera- 
tions, I  normally  accepted  each  Senator's  recommenda- 
tions for  offices  of  a  routine  kind,  such  as  most  post-offices 
and  the  like,  but  insisted  on  myself  choosing  the  men  for 
the  more  important  positions.  I  was  willing  to  take  any 
g()od  man  for  postmaster;  but  in  the  case  of  a  Judge  or  Dis- 
trict .Attorney  or  Canal  Commissioner  or  .Ambassador,  I  was 
apt  to  insist  either  on  a  given  man  or  else  on  any  man  with  a 
given  class  of  qualifications.  If  the  Senator  deceived  me,  I 
took  care  that  he  had  no  opportunity  to  repeat  the  deception. 

I  can  perhaps  best  illustrate  my  theory  of  action  by  two 
specific  examples.  In  New^  York  Governor  Odell  and 
Senator  Piatt  sometimes  worked  in  agreement  and  some- 
times were  at  swords'  points,  and  both  wished  to  be  con- 


THK    I'RKSIDKNCV 


J9I 


suited.  To  a  friendly  Congressman,  who  was  also  their 
friend,  I  wrote  .t,^  follows  on  July  22,  1903  : 

"I  want  to  work  with  I'latt.  I  want  to  wcjrk  with  Odell. 
I  want  to  support  both  and  take  the  advice  of  both.  But 
of  course  ultimately  I  must  be  the  judge  as  to  acting  on  the 
advice  given.  When,  as  in  the  case  of  the  judgeship,  I 
am  convinced  that  the  advice  of  both  is  wrong,  I  shall  act 
as  I  did  when  I  appointed  Holt.  When  I  can  tind  a  friend 
of  Odell's  like  Cooley,  who  is  thoroughl}'  tit  for  the  position 
I  desire  to  fill,  it  gives  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  appoint 
him.  When  Piatt  proposes  to  me  a  man  like  Hamilton 
Fish,  it  is  equally  a  pleasure  to  appoint  him." 

This  was  written  in  connection  with  events  which  led 
up  to  my  refusing  to  accept  Senator  Piatt's  or  (lovernor 
Odell's  sugestions  as  to  a  Federal  Judgeship  and  a  Federal 
District  .Attorneyship,  and  insisting  on  the  appointment, 
first  of  Judge  Hough  and  later  of  District  .Attorney  Stimson  ; 
because  in  each  case  I  feU  that  the  work  to  be  done  was  of  so 
high  an  order  that  I  could  not  take  an  ordinary  man. 

The  other  case  was  that  of  Senator  Fulton,  of  Oregon. 
Through  Francis  Heney  I  was  prosecuting  men  who  were 
implicated  in  a  vast  network  of  conspiracy  against  the  law 
in  connection  with  the  theft  of  public  land  in  Oregon.  I 
had  been  acting  on  Senator  Fulton's  recommendations  for 
office,  in  thv  usual  manner.  Heney  had  been  in'".isting  that 
Fulton  was  in  league  with  the  men  wc  were  prosecuting, 
and  that  he  had  recommended  unfit  men.  Fulton  had  been 
protesting  against  my  following  Heney's  advice,  particularly 
as  regards  appointing  Judge  Wolverton  as  L'nited  States 
Judge.  Finally  Heney  laid  before  me  a  report  which  con- 
vinced me  of  the  truth  of  his  statements.  I  then  wrote  to 
Fulton  as  follows,  on  November  20,  1905:  **My  dear 
Senator  Fulton :  I  inclose  you  herewith  a  copy  of  the 
report  made  to  mc  by  Mr.  Heney.  I  have  seen  the  originals 
of  the  letters  from  you  and  Senator  Mitchell  quoted  therein. 
I  do  not  at  this  time  desire  to  discuss  the  report  itself,  which 
of  course  I  must  submit  to  the  Attorney-Cieneral.  But 
I  have  been  obliged  to  reach  the  painful  conclusion  that  your 
own  letters  as  therein  quoted  tend  to  show  that  you  recom- 


392    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

mended  for  the  position  of  District  Attorney  B  when  you 
had  good  reason  to  believe  that  he  had  himself  been  guilty 


<  opyrlKlit  by  KriincBj  H  .liihiMKin 


Kmin  a  pulnting  by  Theobald  Chuuui. 


MkS.    TlIKOIXIRK    ROOSKVK.LT. 


of  fraudulent  conduct  ;  that  you   recommended  C  for  the 
same  position  simply  because  it  was  for  B's  interest  that  he 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


393 


should  be  so  recommended,  and,  as  there  is  reason  to  believe, 
because  he  had  agreed  to  divide  the  fees  with  B  if  he  were 
appointed;  and  that  you  finally  recommended  the  reappoint- 
ment of  H  with  '..  knowledge  that  if  H  were  appointed 
he  would  abs  in  irorn  prosecuting  B  for  criminal  miscon- 
duct, this  bei  ^  wliy  B  adv  cated  H's  claims  for  reappoint- 
ment. If  yoi  c.ro  t  )  Tiia  .c  any  statement  in  the  matter, 
I  shall  of  coui':j  'v>  ..'i-id  to  hear  it.  As  the  District  Judge 
of  Oregon  I  shall  apponit  Judge  W'olverton."  In  the  letter 
I  of  course  gave  in  full  the  names  indicated  above  by  ini- 
tials. Senator  Fulton  gave  no  explanation.  I  therefore 
ceased  to  consult  him  about  appointments  under  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  and  the  Interior,  the  two  departments  in 
which  the  crookedness  had  occurred  -  there  was  no  ques- 
tion of  crookedness  in  the  other  offices  in  the  State,  and 
they  could  be  handled  in  the  ordinary  manner.  Legal 
proceedings  were  undertaken  against  his  colleague  in  the 
Senate,  and  c^ne  of  his  colleagues  in  the  lower  house,  and 
the  former  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  the  penitentiary. 
In  a  number  of  instances  the  legality  of  executive  acts  of 
my  Administration  was  brought  before  the  courts.  They 
were  uniformly  sustained.  For  example,  prior  to  1907 
statutes  relating  to  the  disposition  of  coal  lands  had  been 
construed  as  fixing  the  flat  price  at  J^io  to  j?20  per  acre. 
The  result  was  that  valuable  coal  lands  were  sold  fuv  wholly 
inadequate  prices,  chiefly  to  big  corporations.  By  exec- 
utive order  the  coal  lands  were  withdrawn  and  not  opened 
for  entry  until  proper  classification  was  placed  thereon  by 
Government  agents.  There  was  a  great  clamor  that  I 
was  usurping  legislative  power ;  but  the  acts  were  not  assailed 
in  court  until  we  brought  suits  to  set  aside  entries  made  by 
persons  and  associations  to  obtain  larger  areas  than  the 
statutes  authorized.  This  position  was  opposed  on  the 
ground  that  the  restrictions  imposed  were  illegal;  that  the 
executive  orders  were  illegal.  The  Supreme  Court  sustained 
the  Government.  In  the  same  way  our  attitude  in  the  water 
power  question  was  sustained,  the  Supreme  Court  holding 
that  the  Federal  Cjovernment  had  the  rights  we  claimed  over 
streams  that  are  or  may  be  declared  navigable  by  Congress. 


394    THKODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


» 

'ti 


Again,  when  Oklahoma  became  a  State  we  were  obliged  to 
use  the  executive  power  to  protect  Indian  rights  and  prop- 
erty, for  there  had  been  an  enormous  amount  of  fraud  in 
the  obtaining  of  Indian  lands  by  white  men.  Here  we 
were  denounced  as  usurping  power  over  a  State  as  well  a- 
usurping  power  that  did  not  belong  to  the  executive.  The 
Supreme  Court  sustained  our  action. 

In  connection  with  the  Indians,  by  the  way,  it  was  again 
and  again  necessary  to  assert  the  position  of  the  President 
as  steward  of  the  whole  people.  I  had  a  capital  Indian  Com- 
missioner, Francis  E.  Leupp.  I  found  that  I  could  rely 
on  his  judgment  not  to  get  me  into  fights  that  were  unnec- 
essary, and  therefore  I  always  backed  him  to  the  limit  when 
he  told  me  that  a  fight  was  necessary.  On  one  occasion, 
for  example.  Congress  passed  a  bill  to  sell  to  settlers  about 
half  a  million  acres  of  Indian  land  in  Oklahoma  at  one  and 
a  half  dollars  an  acre.  I  refused  to  sign  it,  and  turned  the 
matter  over  to  Leupp.  The  bill  was  accordingly  with- 
drawn, amended  st)  as  to  safeguard  the  welfare  of  the  Indi- 
ans, and  the  minimum  price  raised  to  five  dollars  an  aero. 
Then  I  signed  the  bill.  Ve  sold  that  land  under  sealed 
bids,  and  realized  for  the  Kiowa,  Comanche,  and  Apache 
Indians  more  than  four  Million  dollars  —  three  millions  and 
a  quarter  more  than  they  would  have  obtained  if  I  had 
signed  the  bill  in  its  original  form.  In  another  case,  where 
there  had  been  a  division  among  the  Sac  and  Fox  Indians, 
part  of  the  tribe  removing  to  Iowa,  the  Iowa  delegation  in 
Congress,  backed  by  two  lowans  who  were  members  of  my 
Cabinet,  passed  a  bill  awarding  a  sum  of  nearly  a  half 
million  dollars  to  the  Iowa  seceders.  They  had  not  con- 
sulted the  Indian  Bureau.  Leupp  protested  against  the 
bill,  and  I  vetoed  it.  A  subsequent  bill  was  passed  on  the 
lines  laid  down  by  the  Indian  Bureau,  referring  the  whole 
controversy  to  the  courts,  and  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  end 
justified  our  position  by  deciding  against  the  Iowa  seceders 
and  awarding  the  money  to  the  Oklahoma  stay-at-homes. 

As  to  all  action  of  this  kind  there  have  long  been  two 
schools  of  political  thought,  upheld  with  equal  sincerity. 
The  division   has   not   normally  been   along  political,   but 


THE  prf:sidi:\cy 


395 


temper  imcntal,  lines.  The  course  I  followed,  of  regarding 
the  executive  as  subject  only  to  the  people,  and,  under  the 
Constitution,  bound  to  serve  the  people  affirmatively  in 
cases  where  the  Constitution  does  not  explicitly  forbid  him 
to  render  the  service,  was  substantially  the  course  followed 
by  both  Andrew  Jackson  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  Other 
honorable  and  well-meaning  Presidents,  such  as  James 
Bucharian,  took  the  opposite  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  narrowly 
legalistic  view  that  the  President  is  the  servant  of  Congres's 
rather  than  of  the  people,  and  can  do  nothing,  no  matter 
how  necessary  it  be  to  act,  unless  the  Constitution  explicitly 
commands  the  action.  \Iost  able  lawyers  who  are  past 
middle  age  take  this  view,  and  so  do  large  numbers  of  well- 
meaning,  respectable  citizens.  My  successor  in  office  took 
this,  the  Buchanan,  view  of  the  President's  powers  and  duties. 
For  example,  under  my  Administration  we  found  that 
one  of  the  favorite  methods  adopted  by  the  men  desirous  of 
stealing  the  public  domain  was  to  carry  the  decision  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  into  court.  By  vigorously 
opposing  such  action,  and  only  by  so  doing,  we  were 
able  to  carry  out  the  policy  of  properly  protec'"^g  the 
public  domain.  My  successor  not  only  took  the  i.  osite 
view,  but  recommended  to  Congress  the  passage  ot  a  bill 
which  would  have  given  the  courts  direct  appellate  power 
over  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  in  these  land  matters. 
This  bill  was  reported  favorably  by  Mr.  Mondell,  chairman 
of  the  House  Committee  on  public  lands,  a  Congressman  who 
took  the  lead  in  every  measure  to  prevent  the  conservation 
of  our  natural  resources  and  the  preservation  of  the  National 
domain  for  the  use  of  home-i'-ekers.  Fortunately,  Congress 
declined  to  pass  the  bill.  Its  passage  would  have  been  a 
veritable  calamity. 

I  acted  on  the  theory  that  the  President  could  at  any  time 
in  his  discretion  withdraw  from  entry  any  of  the  public 
lands  of  the  United  States  and  reserve  the  same  for  forestry, 
for  water-power  sites,  for  irrigation,  and  other  public  pur- 
poses. Without  such  action  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  stop  the  activity  of  the  land  thieves.  Xo  one  ventured 
to  test   its   legality   by   lawsuit.     My   successor,   however, 


396    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    ALITOR  IOC, RAPHY 


himself  questioned  it,  and  referred  the  matte  >  Congress. 
Again  Congress  sliowed  its  wisdom  by  passing  a  law  which 
gave  the  President  the  power  wiiich  he  liad  long  exercised, 
and  of  whicli  mj   successor  had  shorn  himself. 

IVrhaps  the  sharp  difference  between  what  may  be  called 
the  IJncoln-jackson  and  the  Buchanan-Taft  schools,  in 
their  views  of  the  power  and  duties  of  the  President,  may  be 
best  illustrated  by  comparing  the  attitude  of  my  successor 
toward  his  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Mr.  Ballinger,  when  the 
latter  was  accused  of  gross  misconduct  in  office,  with  my 
attitude  towards  my  chiefs  of  department  and  other  sub- 
ordinate ottieers.  More  than  once  while  I  was  President 
my  officials  were  attacked  by  Congress,  generally  because 
these  officials  did  their  duty  well  and  fearlessly.  In  every 
such  case  I  stood  by  the  official  and  refused  to  recognize 
the  right  of  Congress  to  interfere  with  me  excepting  by  im- 
peachment or  in  other  Constitutional  manner.  On  the 
other  hand,  wherever  I  found  the  officer  unfit  for  his  position 
I  promptly  removed  him,  even  although  the  most  influen- 
tial men  in  Congress  fought  for  his  retention.  The  Jack- 
son-Lincoln view  is  that  a  President  who  is  fit  to  do  good 
work  should  be  able  to  form  his  own  judgment  as  to  his 
own  subordinates,  and,  above  all,  of  the  subordinates  stand- 
ing highest  and  in  closest  and  most  intimate  touch  with  him. 
My  secretaries  and  their  subordinates  were  responsible  to 
me,  and  I  accepted  the  responsibility  for  all  their  deeds. 
As  long  as  they  were  satisfactory  to  me  I  stood  by  them 
against  every  critic  or  assailant,  within  or  without  Con- 
gress ;  and  as  for  getting  Congress  to  make  up  my  mind 
for  me  about  them,  the  thought  would  have  been  incon- 
ceivable to  me.  My  successor  took  the  opposite,  or  Bu- 
chanan, view  when  he  permitted  and  requested  Congress  to 
pass  judgment  on  the  charges  made  against  Mr.  Ballinger 
as  an  executive  officer.  These  charges  were  made  to  the 
President ;  the  President  had  the  facts  before  him  and 
could  get  at  them  at  any  time,  and  he  alone  had  power  to 
act  if  the  charges  were  true.  However,  he  permitted  and 
requested  Congress  to  investigate  Mr.  Ballinger.  The 
party  minority  of  the  committee  that  investigated  him,  and 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


397 


one  member  of  the  majority,  declared  that  the  charges 
were  well  founded  and  that  Mr.  Ballingcr  should  be  removed. 
The  other  members  of  the  majority  declared  the  charges  ill 
founded.  The  President  abode  by  the  view  of  the  majority. 
Of  course  believers  in  the  Jackson-Lincoln  theory  of  the 
Presidency  would  not  be  content  with  this  town  meeting 
majority  and  minority  method  of  determining  by  another 
branch  of  the  Government  what  it  seems  the  especial  duty 
of  the  President  himself  to  determine  for  himself  in  dealing 
with  his  own  subordinate  in  his  own  department. 

There  are  many  worthy  people  who  reprobate  the  Bu- 
chanan method  as  a  matter  of  history,  but  who  in  actual  life 
reprobate  still  more  strongly  the  Jackson-Lincoln  method 
when  it  is  put  into  practice.  These  persons  conscien- 
tiously believe  that  the  President  should  solve  every  doubt 
in  favor  of  inaction  as  against  action,  that  he  should  con- 
strue strictly  and  narrowly  the  Constitutional  grant  of 
powers  both  to  the  \ational  (jovernmcnt,  and  to  the  Pres- 
ident within  the  National  Government.  In  addition,  how- 
ever, to  the  men  who  conscientiously  believe  in  this  course 
from  high,  although  as  I  hold  misguided,  motives,  there 
are  many  men  who  affect  to  believe  in  it  merely  because 
it  enables  them  to  attack  and  to  try  to  hamper,  for  partisan 
or  personal  reasons,  an  executive  whom  they  dislike.  There 
are  other  men  in  whom,  especially  when  they  are  themselves 
in  office,  practical  adherence  to  the  Buchanan  principle 
represents  not  well-thought-out  devotion  to  an  unwise 
course,  but  simple  weakness  of  character  and  desire  to  avoid 
trouble  and  responsibility.  L'nfortunately,  in  practice  it 
makes  little  difference  which  class  of  ideas  actuates  the 
President,  who  by  his  action  sets  a  cramping  precedent. 
Whether  he  is  highminded  and  wrongheaded  or  merely 
infirm  of  purpose,  whether  he  means  well  feebly  or  is  bound 
by  a  mischievous  misconception  of  the  powers  and  duties 
of  the  National  Government  and  of  the  President,  the  effect 
of  his  actions  is  the  same.  The  President's  dut\  is  to  act 
so  that  he  himself  and  his  subordinates  shall  be  able  to  do 
efficient  work  for  the  people,  and  this  efficient  work  he  and 
they  cannot  do  if  Congress  is  permitted  to  undertake  the 


» 

I'tt 


'A*       r\rtucL        'r\iilr 

h.tr  V.W -A-.,*'!  (n^ i^^u.  L  <':<i-' «:»nw<i<   fl^,)^<<c  ff-TJJV-^j 

Roprodureil  by  permission  of  the  proprietors  o(  I'uncH  Cartoon  by  Bernard  Partridge. 

Thk  Rocgh  Rider. 

With  Mr.  Puitrh's  best  wishfs  to  Colonel  Roosnrlt,  President  of  the  United  States. 

Punch's  congratulations  when  Colonel  Roosevelt  became  President. 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


399 


task  of  making  up  his  mind  for  him  as  to  how  he  shall  pcr- 
from  what  is  clearly  his  sole  duty 

One  of  the  ways  in  which  by  independent  action  of  the 
executive  we  were  able  to  accomplish  an  immense  amount  of 
work  ior  the  public  was  through  volunteer  unpaid  com- 
missions appointed  by  the  President.  It  was  possible  to 
get  the  work  done  by  these  volunteer  comm-ssions  only 
because  of  the  enthusiasm  for  the  public  service  which, 
starting  in  the  higher  offices  at  Washington,  made  itself 
felt  throughout  die  Government  departments  —  as  I  have 
said,  I  never  knew  harder  and  more  disinterested  work 
done  by  any  people  than  was  done  by  the  men  and  women 
of  all  ranks  in  the  Government  service.  The  contrast 
was  really  extraordinary  between  their  live  interest  in  their 
work  and  the  traditional  clerical  apathy  which  has  so  often 
been  the  distinguishing  note  of  governmental  work  in  Wash- 
ington. Most  of  the  public  service  performed  by  these 
volunteer  commissions,  carried  on  without  a  cent  of  pay  to 
the  men  themselves,  and  wholly  without  cost  to  the  Govern- 
ment, was  done  by  men  the  great  majority  of  whom  were 
already  in  the  Government  service  and  already  charged 
with  responsibilities  amounting  each  to  a  full  man's  job. 

The  first  of  these  Commissions  was  the  Commission  on 
the  Organization  of  Government  Scientific  Work,  whose 
Chairman  was  Charles  D.  Walcott.  Appointed  March  13, 
1903,  its  duty  was  to  report  directly  to  the  President  "upon 
the  organization,  present  condition,  and  needs  of  the  Exec- 
utive Government  work  wholly  or  partly  scientific  in  char- 
acter, and  upon  the  steps  wh'ic  ,  should  be  taken,  if  any, 
to  prevent  the  duplication  of  such  work,  to  co-ordinate  its 
various  branches,  to  increase  its  efficiency  and  economy, 
and  to  promote  its  usefulness  to  the  Nation  at  large." 
This  Commission  spent  four  months  in  an  examination 
which  covered  the  work  of  about  thirty  of  the  larger  scien- 
tific and  executive  bureaus  of  the  (Jovernment,  and  pre- 
pared a  report  which  furnished  the  basis  for  numerous 
improvements  in   the  Government   service. 

Another  Commission,  appointed  June  2,  1905,  was  that 
on   Department    Methods  —  Charles   H.    Keep,   Chairman 


i  i 


400    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


I'll 


-^— whost'  task  was  to  "find  out  what  changes  are  needed 
to  place  the  conduct  of  tlic  executive  business  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  all  its  branches  on  the  most  economical  and  efFect-ve 
basis  in  the  light  of  the  best  modern  business  practict ." 
Tlu'  letter  appointing  this  Commission  laid  down  nine 
principles  vif  etTective  (lovernmental  work,  the  most  striking 
of  which  was:  "'I'he  existence  of  any  method,  standard, 
custom,  or  practice  is  no  reason  for  its  continuance  when  a 
better  is  oflFered."  This  Commission,  composed  like  that 
just  described,  of  men  already  charged  with  important 
work,  performed  its  functions  wholly  without  cost  to  the 
(jovernment.  It  was  assisted  by  a  body  of  about  seventy 
experts  in  the  (jovernment  departments  chosen  for  their 
special  qualifications  to  carry  forward  a  study  of  the  best 
methods  in  business,  and  organized  into  assistant  com- 
mittees under  the  leadership  of  Overton  VV.  Price,  Secretary 
of  the  Commission.  These  assistant  committees,  all  of 
whose  members  were  still  carrying  on  their  regular  work, 
made  their  reports  during  the  last  half  of  1906.  The  Com- 
mittee informed  itself  fully  regarding  the  business  methods 
of  practically  every  individual  branch  of  the  business  of  the 
(iovernment,  and  effected  a  marked  improvement  in  general 
efticiency  throughout  the  service.  The  conduct  of  the 
routine  business  of  the  (jovernment  had  never  been  thor- 
oughly overhauled  before,  and  this  examination  of  it  resulted 
in  the  promulgation  of  a  set  of  working  principles  for  the 
transaction  of  public  business  which  are  as  sound  to-day  as 
they  were  when  the  Committee  finished  iti,  work.  The 
somewhat  elaborate  and  costly  investigations  of  Govern- 
ment business  methods  since  made  have  served  merely  to 
confirm  the  findings  of  the  Committee  on  Departmental 
Methods,  which  were  achieved  without  costing  the  Gov- 
ernnient  a  dollar.  The  actual  saving  in  the  conduct  of  the 
business  of  the  Cjovernment  through  the  better  methods 
thus  introduced  amounted  yearly  to  many  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars  ;  but  a  far  more  important  gain  was  due 
to  the  remarkable  success  of  the  Commission  in  establishing 
a  new  point  of  view  in  public  servants  toward  their  work. 
The  need  for  improvement  in  the  Governmental  methods 


THK    PRESIDENCY 


401 


of  transacting  business  may  be  illustrated  by  an  actual  case 
An  officer  in  charge  of  an  Indian  agency  made  a  requisition 
lii  t  le  autumn  for  a  stove  costing  seven  dollars,  certifying 
at  ihe  same  time  that  it  was  needed  to  keep  the  infirmary 
warm  during  the  winter,  because  the  old  stove  was  worn 
out.      I  hereupon   the  customary  papers   went  through  the 
customary    routine,    without   unusual   delay   at   any   point 
Ihe    transaction    moved   like   a   glacier   with   dignity  to  its 
appointed  end,  and  the  stove  reached  the  infirmarv  in  good 
order  in  time  for  the  Indian  agent  to  acknowledge  i'ts  arrival 
in  these  words  :     "The  stove  is  here.     So  is  spring." 
yjVu     ^''^''    ^^''■^''"'    Commission,    under    men    like    John 
Alcllhenny  and  Clarfield,   rendered   service  without   wliich 
the  C.overnment  could  have  been  conducted  with   neither 
efficiency  nor  honesty.     The  politicians  were  not  the  only 
persons   at   fault;   almost   as   much   improper   pressure   for 
appointments  is  due  to  mere  misplaced  svmpathy,  and  to  the 
spiritless  inefficiency  which  seeks  a  CJovernment  office  as  a 
haven  for  the  incompetent.     An  amusing  feature  of  office 
seeking  is  that  eac!i  man  desiring  an  office  is  apt  to  look 
down  on  a  1  others  with  the  same  object  as  forming  an  objec- 
tionable class  with  which  hf  has  nothing  in  common       \t 
the  time  of  the  eruption  of  Mt.  Pelce,  when  among  others 
the  .American  Consul  was  killed,  a  man  who  had  long  been 
sc-eking  an  appointment  promptly  applied  for  the  vacancy. 
He  was  a  good  man,  of  persistent  nature,  who  felt  I  had  been 
somewhat    blind    to    his    merits.     The    morning    after    the 
catastropln    he  wrote,  saying  that  as  the  consul  was  dead 
he  would  like  his  place,  and  that  I  could  surely  give  it  to 
him,  because  "even  the  office  seekers  could  not  have  applied 
tor  It  yet  !  '^ ' 

The  method  of  public  service  involved  in  the  appointment 
and  the  work  of  the  two  commissions  just  described  was 
applied  also  in  the  establishment  of  four  other  commis- 
sions, each  of  which  performed  its  task  without  salary  or 
expense  for  its  members,  and  wholly  without  cost  to  the 
Oov-ernment.     The  other  four  commissions  were  : 

Commission  on  Public  Lands  ; 

Commission  on  Inland  Waterways  ; 

2U 


402    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Commission  on  Country  Life ;  and 

Commission  on  National  Conservation. 

All  of  these  commissions  were  suggested  to  me  by  Gifford 
Pinchot,  who  served  upon  them  all.  The  work  of  the  last 
four  will  be  touched  upon  in  connection  with  the  chapter 
on  Conservation.  These  commissions  by  their  reports  and 
findings  directly  interfered  with  many  place-holders  who  were 
doing  inefficient  work,  ^nd  their  reports  and  the  action  taken 
thereon  by  the  Administration  strengthened  the  hands  of 
those  administrative  officers  who  in  the  various  depart- 
ments, and  especially  in  the  Secret  Service,  were  proceeding 
against  land  thieves  and  other  corrupt  wrong-doers.  More- 
over, the  mere  fact  that  they  did  efficient  work  for  the  jpub- 
lic  along  lines  new  to  veteran  and  cynical  politicians  of  the 
old  type  created  vehement  hostility  to  them.  Senators  like 
Mr.  Hale  and  Congressmen  like  Mr.  Tawney  were  espe- 
cially bitter  against  these  commissions ;  and  towards  the 
end  of  my  term  they  were  followed  by  the  majority  of  their 
fellows  in  both  houses,  who  had  gradually  been  sundered 
ivom  me  by  the  open  or  covert  hostility  of  the  financial  or 
Wall  Street  leaders,  and  of  the  newspaper  editors  and  poli- 
ticians who  did  their  bidding  in  the  interest  of  privilege. 
These  Senators  and  Congressmen  asserted  that  they  had 
a  right  to  forbid  the  President  profiting  by  the  unpaid 
advice  of  disinterested  experts.  Of  course  I  declined  to 
admit  the  existence  of  any  such  right,  and  continued  the 
Commissions.  My  successor  acknowledged  the  right, 
upheld  the  view  of  the  politicians  in  question,  and  aban- 
doned the  commissions,  to  the  lasting  detriment  of  the  peo- 
ple as  a  whole. 

One  thing  is  worth  pointing  out :  During  the  seven  and  a 
half  years  of  my  Administration  we  greatly  and  usefully 
extended  the  sphere  of  Governmental  action,  and  yet  we 
reduced  the  burden  of  the  taxpayers;  for  we  reduced  the 
interest-bearing  debt  by  more  than  $()0,ooo,ocx>.  To 
achieve  a  marked  increase  in  efficiency  and  at  the  same  time 
an  increase  in  economy  is  not  an  easy  feat;  but  we  per- 
formed it. 

There  was  one  ugly  and  very  necessary  task.    This  was 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


403 


to  discover  and  root  out  corruption  wherever  it  was  found 
in  any  of  the  departments.  The  first  essential  was  to  make 
It  clearly  understood  that  no  political  or  business  or  social 
influence  of  any  kind  would  for  one  moment  be  even  con- 
sidered when  the  honesty  of  a  public  official  was  at  issue. 
It  took  a  little  time  to  get  this  fact  thoroughly  drilled  into 
the  heads  both  of  the  men  within  the  service  and  of  the 
political  leaders  without.  The  feat  was  accomplished  so 
thoroughly  that  every  effort  tolnterfere  in  any  shape  or  way 
with  the  course  of  justice  was  abandoned  definitely  and  for 
good.  xMost,  although  not  all,  of  the  frauds  occurred  in 
connection  with  the  Post-Office  Department  and  the  Land 
Office. 

It  was  in  the  Post-Office   Department  that  we  first  defi- 
nitely established  the  rule  of  conduct  which  became  universal 
throughout   the  whole  service.     Rumors  of  corruption   in 
the  department  became  rife,   and  finally   I  spoke  of  them 
to  the  then  First  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  afterwards 
Postmaster-General,    Robert   J.    Wynne.     He    reported    to 
me,  after  some  investigation,  that  in  his  belief  there  was 
doubtless  corruption,  but  that  it  was  very  difficult  to  get  at 
it,  and  that  the  offenders  were  confident  and  defiant  because 
of  their  great  political  and  business  backing  and  the  rami- 
fications of  their  crimes.     Talking  the   matter  over  with 
him,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  right  man  to  carry 
on  the  investigation  was  the  then  Fourth  Assistant  Post- 
master-General,  now   a   Senate-  from   Kansas,   Joseph   L. 
Bristow,    who    possessed    the    iron    fearlessness    needful    to 
front  such  a  situation.     Mr.   Bristow  had  perforce  seen  a 
good  deal  of  the  seamy  side  of  politics,  and  of  the  extent 
of  the  unscrupulousness  with  which  powerful  influence  was 
brought  to  bear  to  shield  offenders.     Before  undertaking 
the  investigation  he  came  to  see  me,  and  said  that  he  did 
not  wish  to  go  into  it  unless  he  could  be  assured  that  I 
would  stand  personally  behind  him,  and,  no  matter  where 
his  inquiries  led  him,  would  support  him  and  prevent  inter- 
ference with  him.     I  answered  that  I  would  certainly  do  so. 
He    went    into    the    investigation    with    relentless    energy, 
dogged   courage,   and   keen  intelligence.     His  success  was 


ii' 


404     rilKODORK    RCX)Si:\  KI.T  -  AN    AITOBKHIRAIMIV 


complete,  and  the  fxtt-nt  of  his  services  to  the  Nation  are 
not  easily  to  lu"  exaggerated.  He  unearthed  a  really  appall- 
ing amount  of  corruption,  and  he  did  his  work  with  such 
absolute  thoroughness  that  the  ct)rruption  was  coniplelely 
eradicated. 

We  had,  of  course,  the  experience  usual  in  all  such  investi- 
gatit)ns.  At  first  there  was  popular  incredulity  and  disbelief 
that  there  was  much  behind  the  charges,  or  that  much 
could  be  unearthed.  Then  when  the  corruption  was  shown 
there  followed  a  jell  of  anger  from  all  directions,  and  a 
period  during  which  any  man  accused  was  forthwith  held 
guilty  by  the  public  ;  and  \iolent  demands  were  made  by 
the  newspapers  for  the  prosecution  not  only  of  the  men  who 
could  be  prosecuted  with  a  fair  chance  oi  securing  conviction 
and  imprisonment,  but  of  other  men  whose  misco'  duct  had 
been  such  as  to  warrant  my  removing  them  from  office, 
but  against  whom  it  was  not  possible  to  get  the  kind  of 
evidence  which  would  •  nder  likely  conviction  in  a  criminal 
case.  Suits  were  brou^'ht  against  all  the  officials  whom  we 
thought  we  could  convict ;  and  the  public  complained  bitterly 
that  we  did  not  bring  further  suits.  We  secured  several 
convictions,  including  convictions  of  the  most  notable 
offenders.  The  trials  consumed  a  good  deal  of  time.  Pub- 
lic attention  was  attracted  to  something  else.  IndiflFerence 
succeeded  to  excitement,  and  in  some  subtle  way  the  juries 
seemed  to  respond  to  the  indifference.  One  of  the  worst 
offenders  was  acquitted  by  a  jury  ;  whereupon  not  a  few  of 
the  same  men  who  had  insisted  that  the  (lovernment  was 
derelict  in  not  criminally  prosecuting  every  man  whose  mis- 
conduct was  established  so  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  turn 
him  out  of  office,  now  turned  round  and,  inasmuch  as  i In- 
jury had  not  found  this  man  guilty  of  crime,  demanded 
that  he  should  be  reinstated  in  office  !  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  the  demand  was  not  granted.  There  were  two  or 
three  other  acquittals,  of  prominent  outsiders.  Neverthe- 
less the  net  result  was  that  the  majority  of  the  worst  offend- 
ers were  sent  to  prison,  and  the  remainder  dismissed  from 
the  Government  service,  if  they  were  public  officials,  and  if 
:hey  were  not  public  officials  at  least  so  advertised  as  to 


Tin:   PR    SIDENCV 


405 


render  it  impossible  that  they  should  ever  again  have  deal- 
ing's with  the  Clovernnient.  The  department  was  abso- 
lutely cleaned  and  became  one  of  the  very  best  in  the  (lov- 
crnmcnt.  Several  Senators  eanie  to  me  Mr.  Garfield  was 
present  on  the  occasion  and  said  that  they  were  jjlad  I 
was  putting  a  stop  to  corruption,  but  they  hoped  I  would 
avoid  all  scandal;  that  if  I  would  make  an  example  of  some 
one  man  and  then  let  the  others  quietly  resign,  it  would 
avoid  a  disturbance  which  might  hurt  the  party.  They  were 
advising  me  in  good  faith,  and  I  was  as  courteous  as  pos- 
sible in  my  answer,  but  explained  that  I  would  have  to  act 
with  the  utmost  rigor  against  the  otTenders,  no  matter  what 
the  effect  on  the  party,  and,  moreover,  that  I  did  not  believe 
it  Would  hurt  the  party.  It  did  not  hurt  the  party.  It 
helped  the  party.  A  favorite  war-cry  in  American  political 
life  has  always  been,  "Turn  the  rascals  out."  We  made  it 
evident  that,  as  far  as  we  were  concerned,  this  war-cry  was 
pointless;  for  we  turned  our  own  ra.Ncals  out. 

There  were  important  and  successful  land  fraud  prose- 
cutions in  several  Western  States.  Probably  the  most 
important  were  the  cases  prosecuted  in  Oregon  by  F'Vancis 
j.  Heney,  with  the  assistance  of  William  J.  Burns,  a  secret 
service  agent  who  at  that  time  began  his  career  as  a  great 
detective.  It  would  be  impossible  to  overstate  the  services 
rendered  to  the  cause  of  decency  and  honesty  by  Messrs. 
Heney  and  Burns.  Mr.  Heney  was  my  close  and  intimate 
adviser  professional!}'  and  non-professionally,  not  only  as 
regards  putting  a  stop  !o  frauds  in  the  public  lands,  but  in 
many  other  matters  of  vital  interest  to  the  Republic.  No 
man  in  the  country  has  waged  the  battle  for  National 
honesty  with  greater  courage  and  success,  with  more  whole- 
hearted devotion  to  the  public  good;  'uid  no  man  has  been 
more  traduced  and  maligned  by  the  wrong-doing  agents  and 
representatives  of  the  great  sinister  forces  of  evil.  He 
secured  the  conviction  of  various  men  of  high  political  and 
financial  standing  in  connection  with  the  Oregon  prosecu- 
tions;  he  and  Burns  behaved  with  scrupulous  fairness  and 
propriety;  but  their  services  to  the  public  caused  them  to 
incur  the  bitter  hatred  of  those  who  had  wronged  the  pub- 


Ir, 


4o6    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


l')t 


lie,  and  after  I  left  office  the  National  Administration  turned 
against  them.  One  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  men 
whom  they  had  succeeded  in  convicting  was  pardoned  by 
President  Taft  —  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  presiding 
Judge,  Judge  Hunt,  had  held  that  the  evidence  amply 
warranted  the  conviction,  and  had  sentenced  the  man  to 
imprisonment.  As  was  natural,  the  one  hundred  and  forty- 
six  land-fraud  defendants  in  Oregon,  who  included  the  fore- 
most machine  political  leaders  in  the  State,  furnished  the 
backbone  of  the  opposition  to  me  in  the  Presidential  contest 
of  191 2.  The  opposition  rallied  behind  Messrs.  Taft  and 
LaFollette  ;  and  although  I  carried  the  primaries  handsomely, 
half  of  the  delegates  elected  from  Oregon  under  instructions 
to  vote  for  me,  sided  with  my  opponents  in  the  National 
Convention  —  and  as  regards  some  of  them  I  became  con- 
vinced that  the  mainspring  of  their  motive  lay  in  the  intrigue 
for  securing  the  pardon  of  certain  of  the  men  whose  con- 
viction Heney  had  secured. 

Land  fraud  and  post-office  cases  were  not  the  only  ones. 
We  were  especially  zealous  in  prosecuting  all  of  the  "higher 
up"  offenders  in  the  realms  of  politics  and  finance  who 
swindled  on  a  large  scale.  Special  assistants  of  the  Attor- 
ney-General, such  as  Mr.  Frank  Kellogg,  of  St.  Paul,  and 
various  first-class  Federal  district  attorneys  in  different 
parts  of  the  country  secured  notable  results :  Mr.  Stimson 
and  his  assistants,  Messrs.  Wise,  Denison,  and  Frank- 
furter, in  New  York,  for  instance,  in  connection  with  the 
prosecution  of  the  Sugar  Trust  and  of  the  banker  Morse, 
and  of  a  great  metropolitan  newspaper  for  opening  its 
columns  to  obscene  and  immoral  advertisements ;  and  in 
St.  Louis  Messrs.  Dyer  and  Nortoni,  who,  among  other 
services,  secured  the  conviction  and  imprisonment  of  Senator 
Burton,  of  Kansas;  and  in  Chicago  Mr.  Sims,  who  raised 
his  office  to  the  highest  pitch  of  efficiency,  secured  the  con- 
viction of  the  banker  Walsh  and  of  the  Beef  Trust,  and  first 
broke  through  the  armor  of  the  Standard  Oil  Trust.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  these  men,  and  others  like  them, 
worked  a  complete  revolution  in  the  enforcement  of  the 
Federal  laws,  and  made  their  offices  organized  legal  machines 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


407 


fit  and  ready  to  conduct  smashing  fights  for  the  people's 
rights  and  to  enforce  the  laws  in  aggressive  fashion.  When 
I  took  the  Presidency,  it  was  a  common  and  bitter  saying 
that  a  big  man,  a  rich  man,  could  not  be  put  in  jail.  We 
put  many  big  and  rich  men  in  jail ;  two  United  States 
Senators,  for  instance,  and  among  others  two  great  bankers, 
one  in  New  York  and  one  in  Chicago.  One  of  the  United 
States  Senators  died,  the  other  served  his  term.  (One  of 
the  bankers  was  released  from  prison  by  executive  order 
after  I  left  office.)  These  were  merely  individual  cases 
among  many  others  like  them.  Moreover,  we  were  just 
as  relentless  in  dealing  with  crimes  of  violence  among  the 
disorderly  and  brutal  classes  as  in  dealing  with  the  crimes  of 
cunning  and  fraud  of  which  certain  vt'calthy  men  and  big 
politicians  were  guilty.  Mr.  Sims  in  Chicago  was  partic- 
ularly efficient  in  sending  to  the  penitentiary  numbers  of  the 
infamous  men  who  batten  on  the  "white  slave"  traffic, 
after  July,  1908,  when  by  proclamation  I  announced  the 
adherence  of  our  Government  to  the  international  agree- 
ment for  the  suppression  of  the  traffic. 

The  views  I  then  held  and  now  hold  were  expressed  in  a 
memorandum  made  in  the  case  of  a  Negro  convicted  of  the 
rape  of  a  young  Negro  girl,  practically  a  child.  A  petition 
for  his  pardon  had  been  sent  me. 


White  House,  Washington,  D.  C, 
August  8,  1904. 

The  application  for  the  commutation  of  sentence  of 
John  W.  Burley  is  denied.  This  man  committed  the  most 
hideous  crime  known  to  our  laws,  and  twice  before  he  has 
committed  crimes  of  a  similar,  though  less  horrible,  charac- 
ter. In  my  judgment  there  is  no  justification  whatever 
for  paying  heed  to  the  allegations  that  he  is  not  of  sound 
mind,  allegations  made  after  the  trial  and  conviction. 
Nobody  would  pretend  that  there  has  ever  been  any  such 
degree  ot  mental  unsoundness  shown  as  would  make  people 
even  consider  sending  him  to  an  asylum  if  he  had  not  com- 
mitted this  crime.     Under  such  circumstances  he  should 


4o8    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  -  AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


^1 


certainly  be  esteemed  sane  enough  to  suflFcr  the  penalty 
for  his  monstrous  deed.  I  have  scant  sympathy  with  the 
plea  of  insanity  advanced  to  save  a  man  from  the  conse- 
quences of  crime,  when  unless  that  crime  had  been  com- 
mitted it  would  have  been  impossible  to  persuade  any 
responsible  authority  to  commit  him  to  an  asylum  as  insane. 
Among  the  most  dangerous  criminals,  and  especially  among 
those  prone  to  commit  this  particular  kind  of  oflfense,  there 
are  plenty  of  a  temper  so  fiendish  or  so  brutal  as  to  be  incom- 
patible with  any  other  than  a  brutish  order  of  intelligence ; 
but  these  men  are  nevertheless  responsible  for  their  acts ; 
and  nothing  more  tends  to  encourage  crime  among  such  men 
than  the  belief  that  through  the  plea  of  insanity  or  any  other 
method  it  is  possible  for  them  to  escape  paying  the  just 
penalty  of  their  crimes.  The  crime  in  question  is  one  to 
the  existence  of  which  we  largely  owe  the  existence  of  that 
spirit  of  lawlessness  which  takes  form  in  lynching.  It  is  a 
crime  so  revolting  that  the  criminal  is  not  entitled  to  one 
particle  of  sympathy  from  any  human  being.  It  is  essential 
that  the  punishment  for  it  should  be  not  only  as  certain 
but  as  swift  as  possible.  The  jury  in  this  case  did  their 
duty  by  recommending  the  infliction  of  the  death  penalty. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  do  not  have  special  provision 
for  more  summary  dealing  with  this  type  of  cases.  The 
more  we  do  what  in  us  lies  to  secure  certain  and  swift  jus- 
tice in  dealing  with  these  cases,  the  more  effectively  do  wc 
work  against  the  growth  of  that  lynching  spirit  which  is  so 
full  of  evil  omen  for  this  people,  because  it  seeks  to  avenge 
one  infamous  crime  by  the  commission  of  another  of  equal 
infamy. 

The  application  is  denied  and  the  sentence  will  be  car- 
ried into  effect. 

(Signed)  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

One  of  the  most  curious  incidents  of  lawlessness  with  which 
I  had  to  deal  affected  an  entire  State.  The  State  of  Nevada 
in  the  year  1907  was  gradually  drifting  into  utter  govern- 
mental impotence  and  downright  anarchy.  The  people 
were  at  heart  all  right ;  but  the  forces  of  evil  had  been  per- 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


409 


mined  to  get  the  upper  hand,  and  for  the  time  being  the 
decent  citizens  had  become  helpless  to  assert  themselves 
either  by  controlling  the  greedy  corporations  on  the  one 
hand  or  repressing  the  murderous  violence  of  certain  law- 
less labor  organizations  on  the  other  hand.     The  Governor 
of  the  State  was  a  Democrat  and  a  Southern  man,  and  in 
the  abstract   a   strong  believer  in  the  doctrine  of  State's 
Rights.     But  his  experience  finally  convinced  him  that  he 
could  obtain  order  only  through   the   intervention  of  the 
National  Government ;  and  then  he  went  over  too  far  and 
wished   to   have   the   National   Government   do   his   police 
work  for  him.     In  the  Rocky  Mountain  States  there  had 
existed  for  years  what  was  practically  a  condition  of  almost 
constant  war  between   the   wealthy   mine-owners   and   the 
Western  Federation  of  Miners,  at  whose  head  stood  Messrs. 
Haywood,  Pcttibone,  and  Moyer,  who  were  about  that  time 
indicted  for  the  murder  of  the  Governor  of  Idaho.     Much 
that  was  lawless,  much  that  was  indefensible,  had  been  done 
by  both  sides.     The  Legislature  of  Nevada  was  in  sympathy 
with,  or  at  least  was  afraid  of  not  expressing  sympathy  for, 
Messrs.  Moyer,  Haywood,  Pettibone,  and  their  associates. 
The  State  was  practically  without  any  police,  and  the  Gov- 
ernor had  recommended  the  establishment  of  a  State  Con- 
stabulary, along  the  lines  of  the  Texas  Rangers;  but  the 
Legislature   rejected   his   request.     The  Governor  reported 
to  me  the  conditions  as  follows.     During   1907  the  Gold- 
field  mining  district  became  divided  into  two  hostile  camps. 
Half  of  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  were  constantly 
armed,    and    arms    and    ammunition    were    purchased    and 
kept  by  the  union  as  a  bc.dy,  while  the  mine-owners  on  their 
side  retained  large  numbers  of  watchmen  and  guards  who 
were  also  armed  and  always  on  duty.      In  addition  to  these 
opposing  forces   there   was,   as   the  Governor  reported,  an 
unusually  large  number  of  the  violent  and  criminal  element, 
always    attracted    to    a    new    and    booming    mining   camp. 
Under  such  conditions  the  civil  authorities  were  practically 
powerless,  and  the  Governor,  being  helpless  to  avert  civil 
war,  called  on  me  to  keep  order.     1   accordingly  threw  in 
a  body  of  regular  troops  under  General  Funston.     These 


tf: 


Rrprodured  by  pcrmlmlon  of  the  proprietors  o<  Punch.  Cartoon  by  Bertuird  Tartrldge. 

The  Soap-a\d-\Vater  Cure. 

I'roident  R(K)&evdt :    "As  I  recently  rcmarke<l  at  Nashville.  Tenn. :    'During  the  next  six- 
teen months  of  my  term  of  office  this  policy  shall  be  persevered  in  unswervingly.'  " 

Au£Ric.\N  Eagle  :    "  Je-hosaphat  ! " 


THE  PRESIDENCY 


411 


kept  order  completely,  and  the  Governor  became  so  well 
satisfied  that  he  thought  he  would  like  to  have  them  there 
permanently !  This  seemed  to  me  unhealthy,  and  on 
December  28,  1907,  I  notified  him  that  while  I  would  do 
my  duty,  the  first  need  was  that  the  State  authorities 
should  do  theirs,  and  that  the  first  step  towards  this  was  the 
assembling  of  the  Legislature.  I  concluded  my  telegram: 
"  If  within  five  days  from  receipt  of  this  telegram  you  shall 
have  issued  the  necessary  notice  to  convene  the  Legislature 
of  Nevada,  I  shall  continue  the  troops  during  a  period  of 
three  weeks.  If  when  the  term  of  five  days  has  elapsed 
the  notice  has  not  been  issued,  the  troops  will  be  immediately 
returned  to  their  former  stations."  1  had  already  investi- 
gated the  situation  through  a  committee,  composed  of  the 
Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Corporations,  Mr.  H.  K.  Smith,  the 
Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  Mr.  C.  P.  Xeill,  and  the  Comp- 
troller of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Lawrence  Murray.  These 
men  I  could  thoroughly  trust,  and  their  report,  which  was 
not  over-favorable  to  either  side,  had  convinced  me  that  the 
only  permanent  way  to  get  good  results  was  to  insist  on  the 
peopleof  the  Str  te  themselves  grappling  with  and  solving  their 
own  troubles.  The  Governor  summoned  the  Legislature, 
it  met,  and  the  constabulary  bill  was  passed.  The  troops 
remained  in  Nevada  until  time  had  been  given  for  the 
State  authorities  to  organize  their  force  so  that  violence  could 
at  once  be  checked.     Then  they  were  withdrawn. 

Nor  was  it  only  as  regards  their  own  internal  affairs  that 
I  sometimes  had  to  get  into  active  communication  with  the 
State  authorities.  There  has  ah^  s  been  a  strong  feeling 
in  California  against  the  immigra^on  of  Asiatic  laborers, 
whether  these  are  wage-workers  or  men  who  occupy  and  till 
the  soil.  I  believe  this  to  be  fundamentally  a  sound  and 
proper  attitude,  an  attitude  which  must  be  insisted  upon, 
and  yet  which  can  be  insisted  upon  in  such  a  manner  and 
with  such  courtesy  and  such  sense  of  mutual  fairness  and 
reciprpcal  obligation  and  respect  as  not  to  give  any  just 
cause  of  offense  to  Asiatic  peoples.  In  the  present  state  of 
the  world's  progress  it  is  highly  inadvisable  that  peoples 
in  wholly  different  stages  of  civilization,  or  of  wholly  diflferent 


f-' 


r- 


412 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


I 

'ii 


typc8  of  civilization  even  although  both  equally  high,  shall 
be  thrown  into  intimate  contact.  This  is  especially  unde- 
sirable when  there  is  a  difference  of  both  race  and  standard 
of  living.  In  California  the  question  became  acute  in  con- 
nection with  the  admission  of  the  Japanese.  I  then  had  and 
now  have  a  hearty  admiration  for  the  Japanese  people. 
I  believe  in  them ;  I  respect  their  great  qualities ;  I  wish 
that  our  American  people  had  many  of  these  qualities. 
Japanese  and  American  students,  travelers,  scientific  and 
literary  men,  merchants  engaged  in  international  trade, 
and  the  like  can  meet  on  terms  of  entire  equality  and  should 
be  given  the  freest  access  each  to  the  country  of  the  other. 
But  the  Japanese  themselves  would  not  tolerate  the  intrusion 
into  their  country  of  a  mass  of  Americans  who  would  dis- 
place Japanese  in  the  business  of  the  land.  I  think  they  are 
entirely  right  in  this  position.  I  would  be  the  first  to  admit 
that  Japan  has  the  absolute  right  to  declare  on  what  terms 
foreigners  shall  be  admitted  to  work  in  her  country,  or  to  own 
land  in  her  country,  or  to  become  citizens  of  her  country. 
America  has  and  must  insist  upon  the  same  right.  The  peo- 
ple of  California  wx-re  right  in  insisting  that  the  Japanese 
should  not  come  thither  in  mass,  that  there  should  be  no 
influx  of  laborers,  of  agricultural  workers,  or  small  trades- 
men —  in  short,  no  mass  settlement  or  immigration. 

Unfortunately,  during  the  latter  part  of  my  term  as 
President  certain  unwise  and  demagogic  agitators  in  Cali- 
fornia, to  show  their  disapproval  of  the  Japanese  coming  into 
the  State,  adopted  the  very  foolish  procedure  of  trying  to 
provide  by  law  that  the  Japanese  children  should  not  be 
allowed  to  attend  the  schools  with  the  white  children,  and 
offensive  and  injurious  language  was  used  in  connection 
with  the  proposal.  The  Federal  Administration  promptly 
took  up  the  matter  with  the  California  authorities,  and  I 
got  into  personal  touch  with  them.  At  my  request  the 
Mayor  of  San  Francisco  and  other  leaders  in  the  movement 
came  on  to  see  me.  I  explained  that  the  duty  of  the  Na- 
tional Government  was  twofold  :  in  the  first  place,  to  meet 
every  reasonable  wish  and  every  real  need  of  the  people  of 
California  or  any  other  State  in  dealing  with  the  people  of 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


413 


a  foreign  power;  and,  in  the  next  place,  itself  exclusively 
and  fully  to  exercise  the  right  of  dealing  with  this  foreign 
power. 

inasmuch  as  in  the  last  resort,  including  that  last  of  all 
resorts,  war,  the  dealing  of  necessity  had  to  be  between 
the  foreign  power  and  the  National  Government,  it  was 
impossible  to  admit  that  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty 
could  be  invoked  in  such  a  matter.  As  soon  as  legislative 
or  other  action  in  any  State  affects  a  foreign  nation,  then 
the  affair  becomes  one  for  the  Nation,  and  the  State 
should  deal  with  the  foreign  power  purely  through  the 
Nation. 

I  explained  that  I  was  in  entire  sympathy  with  the  people 
of  California  as  to  the  subject  of  immigration  of  the  Japanese 
in  mass  ;  but  that  of  course  I  wished  to  accomplish  the  object 
they  had  in  view  in  the  way  that  would  be  most  courteous 
and  most  agreeable  to  the  feelings  of  the  Japanese ;  that  all 
relations  between  the  two  peoples  must  be  those  of  recip- 
rocal justice,  and  that  it  was  an  intolerable  outrage  on  the 
part  of  newspapers  and  public  men  to  use  offensive  and 
insulting  language  about  a  high-spirited,  sensitive,  and 
friendly  people;  and  that  such  action  as  was  proposed 
about  the  schools  could  only  have  bad  effects,  and  would 
in  no  shape  or  way  achieve  the  purpose  that  the  Californians 
had  in  mind.  I  also  explained  that  I  would  use  every 
resource  of  the  National  Government  to  protect  the  Japanese 
in  their  treaty  rights,  and  would  count  upon  the  State 
authorities  backing  me  up  to  the  limit  in  such  action. 
In  short,  I  insisted  upon  the  two  points  (i)  that  the  Nation 
and  not  the  individual  States  must  deal  with  matters  of 
such  international  significance  and  must  treat  foreign 
nations  with  entire  courtesy  and  respect;  and  (2)  that  the 
Nation  would  at  once,  and  in  efficient  and  satisfactory 
manner,  take  action  that  would  meet  the  needs  of  California. 
I  both  asserted  the  power  of  the  Nation  and  offered  a  full 
remedy  for  the  needs  of  the  State.  This  is  the  right,  and 
the  only  right,  course.  The  worst  possible  course  in  such  a 
case  is  to  fail  tt)  insist  on  the  right  of  the  Nation,  to  offer 
no  action  of  the  Nation  to  remedy  what  is  wrong,  and  yet 


11 


414    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  — AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


• 

'ii 


to  try  to  coax  the  State  not  to  do  what  it  is  mistakenly 
encouraged  to  believe  it  has  the  power  to  do,  when  no  other 
alternative  is  offered. 

After  a  good  deal  of  discussion,  we  came  to  an  entirely 
satisfactory  conclusion.  The  obnoxious  school  legislation 
was  abandoned,  and  I  secured  an  arrangement  with  Japan 
under  which  the  Japanese  themselves  prevented  any  emi- 
gration to  our  country  of  their  laboring  people,  it  being 
distinctly  understood  that  if  there  was  such  emigration  the 
United  States  would  at  once  pass  an  exclusion  law.  It  was 
of  cou  -e  infinitely  better  that  the  Japanese  should  stop 
their  own  people  from  coming  rather  than  that  we  should 
have  to  stop  them ;  but  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  hold  this 
power  in  reserve. 

Unfortunately,  after  I  left  office,  a  most  mistaken  and 
ill-advised  policy  was  pursued  towards  Japan,  combining 
irritation  and  inefficiency,  which  culminated  in  a  treaty 
under  which  we  surrendered  this  important  and  necessary 
right.  It  was  alleged  in  excuse  that  the  treaty  provided 
for  its  own  abrogation ;  but  of  course  it  is  infinitely  better 
to  have  a  treaty  under  which  the  power  to  exercise  a 
necessary  right  is  explicitly  retained  rather  than  a  treaty 
so  drawn  that  recourse  must  be  had  to  the  extreme  step  of 
abrogating  if  it  ever  becomes  necessary  to  exercise  the  right 
in  question. 

The  arrangement  we  made  worked  admirably,  and  entirely 
achieved  its  purpose.  No  small  part  of  our  success  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  we  succeeded  in  impressing  on  the  Japanese 
that  we  sincerely  admired  and  respected  them,  and  desired 
to  treat  them  with  the  utmost  consideration.  I  cannot 
too  strongly  express  my  indignation  with,  and  abhorrence 
of,  reckless  public  writers  and  speakers  who,  with  coarse 
and  vulgar  insolence,  insult  the  Japanese  people  and  thereby 
do  the  greatest  wrong  not  only  to  Japan  but  to  their  own 
country. 

Such  conduct  represents  the  nadir  of  underbreeding  and 
folly,  'i'he  Japanese  are  one  of  the  great  nations  of  the 
world,  entitled  to  stand,  and  standing,  on  a  footing  of 
full  equality  with  any  nation  of  Europe  or  America.     I 


THE  PRESIDENCY 


4»S 


have  the  heartiest  admiration  for  thcni.  They  can  teach 
us  much.  Their  civilization  is  in  some  respects  higher  than 
our  own.  It  is  eminently  undesirable  that  Japanese  and 
Americans  should  attempt  to  live  together  in  masses ;  any 
such  attempt  would  be  sure  to  result  disastrously,  and  the 
far-seeing  statesmen  of  both  countries  should  join  to  pre- 
vent it. 

But  this  is  not  because  either  nation  is  inferior  to  the 
other;  it  is  because  they  are  different.  The  two  peoples 
represent  two  civilizations  which,  although  in  many  re- 
spects equally  high,  are  so  totally  distinct  in  their  past 
history  that  it  is  idle  to  expect  in  one  or  two  generations 
to  overcome  this  difference.  One  civilization  is  as  old  as 
the  other;  and  in  neither  case  is  the  line  of  cultural  descent 
coincident  with  that  of  ethnic  descent.  Unquestionably 
the  ancestors  of  the  great  majority  both  of  the  modern 
Americans  and  the  modern  Japanese  were  barbarians 
in  that  remote  past  which  saw  the  origins  of  the  cultured 
peoples  to  which  the  Americans  and  the  Japanese  of  to-day 
severally  trace  their  civilizations.  But  the  lines  of  develop- 
ment of  these  two  civilizations,  of  the  Orient  and  the  Occi- 
dent, have  been  separate  and  divergent  since  thousands 
of  years  before  the  Christian  era ;  certainly  since  that  hoary 
eld  in  which  the  Akkadian  predecessors  of  the  Chaldean 
Semites  held  sway  in  Mesopotamia.  An  effort  to  mix  to- 
gether, out  of  hand,  the  peoples  representing  the  culminating 
points  of  two  such  lines  of  divergent  cultural  development 
would  be  fraught  with  peril ;  and  this,  I  repeat,  because  the 
two  are  different,  not  because  either  is  inferior  to  the  other. 
Wise  statesmen,  looking  to  the  future,  will  for  the  present 
endeavor  to  keep  the  two  nations  from  mass  contact  and 
intermingling,  precisely  because  they  wish  to  keep  each  in 
relations  of  permanent  good  will  and  friendship  with  the 
other. 

Exactly  what  was  done  in  the  particular  crisis  to  which 
I  refer  is  shown  in  the  following  letter  which,  after  our 
policy  had  been  successfully  put  into  execution,  I  sent  to 
the  then  Speaker  of  the  California  lower  house  of  the  Legis- 
lature : 


i!i 


4i6    THEODORE    ROOSEV  ELI  —  AX    Al  TOBIOCRAPHY 


The  White  Moiise,  VVashincton, 
February  8,  i<;o<;. 
Hon.  p.  a.  Stanton, 

Spcalcrr  of  the  Assembly, 

Saciamcnlo,  California : 

1  trust  tlit-rc  will  be  no  misunderstanding  of  the  Federal 
Ciovernment's  attitude.  We  are  jealously  endeavoring 
to  guard  the  interests  of  California  and  of  the  entire  West  in 
accordance  with  the  desires  of  our  Western  people.  By 
friendly  agreement  with  Japan,  we  are  now  carrying  out  a 
policy  which,  while  meeting  the  interests  and  desires  of  the 
Pacific  slope,  is  yet  compatible,  not  merely  with  mutual 
self-respect,  but  with  mutual  esteem  and  admiration  between 
the  Americans  and  Japanese.  The  Japanese  (jovernment 
is  loyally  and  in  good  faith  doing  its  part  to  carry  out  this 
policy,  precisely  as  the  American  Ciovernment  is  doing. 
The  policy  aims  at  mutuality  of  obligation  and  behavior. 
In  accordance  with  it  the  purpose  is  that  the  Japanese 
shall  come  here  exactly  as  .Americans  go  to  Japan,  which  is  in 
effect  that  travelers,  students,  persons  engaged  in  inter- 
national business,  men  who  sojourn  iov  pleasure  or  study, 
and  the  like,  shall  have  the  freest  access  from  one  country 
to  the  other,  and  shall  be  sure  of  the  best  treatment,  but 
that  there  shall  be  no  settlement  in  mass  by  the  people  of 
either  country  in  the  other.  During  the  last  six  months 
under  this  policy  more  Japanese  have  left  the  country  than 
have  come  in,  and  the  total  number  in  the  United  States 
has  diminished  by  over  two  thousand.  These  figures  are 
absolutely  accurate  and  cannot  be  impeached.  In  other 
words,  if  the  present  policy  is  consistently  followed  and 
works  as  well  in  the  future  as  it  is  now  working,  all  difficulties 
and  causes  of  friction  will  disappear,  while  at  the  same  time 
each  nation  will  retain  its  self-respect  and  the  good  will  of 
the  other.  But  such  a  bill  as  this  school  bill  accomplishes 
literally  nothing  whatever  in  the  tine  of  the  object  aimed  at, 
and  gives  just  and  grave  cause  for  irritation;  while  in  addi- 
tion the  United  States  Government  would  be  obliged  imme- 


THK   PRKSIDKNCY 


417 


diatdy  to  take  action  in   the   Federal  courts   to  test  such 
legislation,  as  we  hold  it  to  he  clearly  a  violation  of  the  treaty. 
On  this  pr.int  I  refer  you  to  the  numerous  decisions  of  the 
L'nited  States  Supreme  Court  in  regard  to  State  laws  which 
violate  treaty  obligations  of  the  Inited  States.     The  legis- 
lation   would    accomplish     nothing    beneficial    and    would 
certainly  cause  some  mischief,  and  might  cause  very  grave 
mischief.     In  short,  the  policy  of  the  Administration  is  to 
combine  the  maximum  of  efficiency  in  achieving   the  real 
object  which  the  people  of  the  Pacific  Slope  have  at  heart, 
with  the  minimum  of  friction  and  trouble,  while  the  mis- 
guided men  who  advocate  such  action  as  this  against  which 
I  pi^otest  are  following  a  policy  which  combines  the  very 
minimum  ()f  efficiency   with   the  maximum  of  insult,   and 
which,  while  totally  failing  to  achieve  any  real  result  for  good, 
yet  might  accomplish  an  infinity  of  harm.     If  in  the  next 
year  or  two   the  action  of  the   Federal   Government    fails 
to  achieve  what  it  is  now  achieving,  then  through  the  further 
action  of  the  President  and  Congress  it  can  be  made  entirely 
efficierit.     I  am  sure  that  the  sound  judgment  of  the  people 
of  California  will  support  you,  Mr.  Speaker,  in  your  effort. 
Let  me  repeat  that  at  present  we  are  actually  doing  the 
very  thing  which  the  people  of  California  wish  to  be  done, 
and   to  upset  the  a.rangement  under  which   this   is  being 
done  cannot  do  good  and  may  do  great  harm.     If  in  the  next 
year  or  t\yo  the  figures  of  immigration  prove  that  the  arrange- 
ment which  has  worked  so  successfully  during  the  last  six 
months  is  no  longer  working  successfully,  then  there  would 
be  ground  for  grievance  and  for  the  reversal  by  the  National 
Government  of  its  present  policy.     But  at  present  the  policy 
is  working  well,  and  until  it  works  badly  it  would  be  a  grave 
misfortune  to  change  it,  and  when  changed  it  can  only  Ite 
changed  effectively  by  the  National  (lovernment. 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

In  foreign  and  domestic  affairs  alike  the  policy  pursued 
during  my  .\dministration  was  simple.  In  foreign  affairs 
the  principle  from  which  we  never  deviated  was  to  have  the 
Nation  behave  toward  other  nations  precisely  as  a  strong, 

2E 


I 


From  a  palntlix  by  John  H.  Sargent 

R£AK  Portico      Thk  Whitk  Hoi'sk. 


TIIK    PRKSIDENCY 


♦19 


honorable,  and   upright   man  b'         -s  in  dcalinK  with   his 
fcUow-mcn.     There  is   no  such  as  international  law 

in  the  sense  that  there  is  municipa,  law  or  law  within  a 
nation.  Within  the  nation  there  is  always  a  judge,  and  a 
policeman  who  stands  back  of  the  judge.  The  whole  system 
of  law  depends  first  upon  the  fact  that  there  is  a  judge 
competent  to  pass  judgment,  and  second  upon  the  fact 
that  there  is  some  competent  officer  whose  duty  it  is  to 
carry  out  this  judgment,  by  force  if  necessary.  In  inter- 
national law  there  is  no  judge,  unless  the  parties  in  interest 
agree  that  one  shall  be  constituted ;  and  there  is  no  police- 
man to  carry  out  the  judge's  orders.  In  consequence,  as 
yet  each  nation  must  depend  upon  itself  for  its  own  pro- 
tection. The  frightful  calamities  that  have  befallen  China, 
solely  because  she  has  had  no  power  of  self-defense,  ought 
to  make  it  inexcusable  in  any  wise  .American  citizen  to  pre- 
tend to  patriotic  purpose,  and  yet  to  fail  to  insist  that  the 
United  States  shall  keep  in  a  condition  of  ability  if  necessary 
to  assert  its  rights  with  a  strong  liand.  It  is  folly  of  the 
criminal  type  for  the  Nation  not  to  keep  up  its  navy,  ncjt 
to  fortify  its  vital  strategic  points,  and  not  to  provide  an 
adequate  army  for  its  needs.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
wicked  for  the  .Nation  to  fail  in  either  justice,  courtesy,  or 
consideration  when  dealing  with  any  other  power,  big  or 
little.  John  Hay  was  Secretary  of  State  when  I  became 
President,  and  continued  to  serve  under  me  until  his  death, 
and  his  and  my  views  as  to  the  attitude  that  the  Nation 
should  take  in  foreign  affairs  were  identical,  bf)th  as  regards 
our  duty  to  be  able  to  protect  ourselves  against  the  strong 
and  IS  regards  our  duty  always  to  act  not  only  justly  but 
generously  toward  the  weak. 

John  Hay  was  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  companions, 
one  of  the  most  charming  of  all  men  of  cultivation  and 
action.  Our  views  on  foreign  afTairs  coincided  absolutely  ; 
but,  as  was  natural  enough,  in  domestic  matters  he  felt 
much  more  conservative  than  he  did  in  the  days  when  as 
a  young  man  he  was  private  secretary  to  the  great  radical 
democratic  leader  of  the  'Co's,  .\braham  Lincoln.  He  was 
fond  of  jesting  with  me  about   my  supposedly  dangerous 


;  5 


420    THEODORE    ROOSKV  KLT- AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


I 
t 

I'll 


tendencies  in  favor  of  labor  against  capital.  When  I  was 
inaugurated  on  March  4,  1905,  I  wore  a  ring  he  sent  me  the 
evening  before,  containing  the  hair  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
This  ring  was  on  my  finger  when  the  Chief  Justice  adminis- 
tered to  me  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  United  States; 
I  often  thereafter  told  John  Hay  that  when  I  wore  such  a 
ring  on  such  an  occasion  1  bound  myself  more  than  ever  to 
treat  the  Constitution,  after  the  manner  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, as  a  document  which  put  human  rights  above  property 
rights  when  the  two  conflicted.  The  last  Christmas  John 
Hay  was  alive  he  sent  me  the  manuscript  of  a  Norse  saga 
by  William  Morris,  with  the  following  note : 

Christmas  Eve,  1904. 

Dear  Theodore  :  In  your  quality  of  X'iking  this  Norse 
saga  should  belong  to  you,  and  in  your  character  of  Enemy 
of  Property  this  Ms.  of  William  Morris  will  appeal  to  you. 
Wishing  you  a  Merry  Christmas  and  many  happy  years, 
I  am  yours  aflfectionately, 

John  Hay. 

In  internal  affairs  I  cannot  say  that  I  entered  the 
Presidency  with  any  deliberately  planned  and  far-reaching 
scheme  of  social  betterment.  I  had,  however  certain  strong 
convictions ;  and  I  was  on  the  lookout  for  every  opportunity 
of  realizing  those  convictions.  I  was  bent  upon  making  the 
(lovernment  the  most  efficient  possible  instrument  in  help- 
ing the  people  of  the  United  States  to  better  themselves  in 
every  way,  politically,  socially,  and  industrially.  I  believed 
with  all  my  heart  in  real  and  thoroughgoing  democracy, 
and  I  wished  to  make  this  democracy  industrial  as  well  as 
political,  although  I  had  only  partially  formulated  the  meth- 
ods I  believed  we  should  ff)llow.  I  believed  in  the  people's 
rights,  and  therefore  in  National  rights  and  States'  rights 
just  exactly  to  the  degree  in  which  they  severally  secured 
popular  rights.  I  believed  in  invoking  the  National  power 
with  absolute  freedom  for  every  .National  need;  and  I 
believed  that  the  Constitution  should  be  treated  as  the 
greatest  document  ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  man  to  aid  a 


THE  PRESIDENCY 


421 


people  in  exercising  every  power  necessary  for  its  own  better- 
ment, and  not  as  a  straitjacket  cunningly  fashioned  to 
strangle  growth.  As  for  the  particular  methods  of  realiz- 
ing these  various  beliefs,  1  was  content  to  wait  and  sec 
what  method  might  be  necessary  in  each  given  case  as  it 
arose;  and  I  was  certain  that  the  cases  would  arise  fast 
enough.  . 

As  the  time  for  the  Presidential  nommation  of  1 904  drew 
near,  it  became  evident  that  1  was  strong  with  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  party,  but  that  there  was  much  opposition  to  me 
among  many  of  the  big  political  leaders,  and  especially 
among  many  of  the  Wall  Street  men.  A  group  of  these 
men  met  in  conference  to  organize  this  opposition.  It  was 
to  be  done  with  complete  secrecy.  But  such  secrets  are 
very  hard  to  keep.  I  speedily  knew  all  about  it,  and  took 
my  measures  accordingly.  The  big  men  in  question,  who 
possessed  much  power  so  long  as  they  could  work  under 
cover,  or  so  long  as  they  were  merely  throwing  their  weight 
one  w  or  the  other  between  forces  fairly  evenly  balanced, 
were  quite  helpless  when  fighting  in  the  open  by  themselves. 
I  never  found  ou.  that  anything  practical  was  even  at- 
tempted by  most  of  the  men  who  took  part  in  the  confer- 
ence. Three  or  four  of  them,  however,  did  attempt 
something.  The  head  of  one  big  business  corporation 
attempted  to  start  an  effort  to  contrt)l  the  delegations  from 
New  Jersey,  North  Carolina,  and  certain  Gulf  States  against 
me.  The  head  of  a  great  railway  system  made  preparations 
for  a  more  ambitious  effort  looking  towards  the  control  of 
the  delegations  from  Iowa,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  Colorado, 
and  California  against  me.  He  was  a  very  powerful  man 
financially,  but  his  power  politically  was  much  miire  limited, 
and  he  did  not  really  understand  his  own  limitations  or 
the  situation  itself,  whereas  I  did.  He  could  not  have 
secured  a  delegate  against  me  from  Iowa.  Nebraska,  or 
Kansas.  In  Colorado  and  California  he  could  have  made  a 
fight,  but  even  there  I  think  he  would  have  been  completely 
beaten.  However,  long  before  the  time  for  the  Convention 
came  round,  it  was  recognized  that  it  was  hopeless  to  make 
any  opposition  to  my  nominalit)n.      The  effort  was  aban- 


422    THEODORK    ROOSKVELT  — AN    AITOBIOGRAPHY 


f 

I'ti 


doned,  and  I  was  nominated  unanimously.  Judge  Parker 
was  nominated  by  the  Democrats  against  me.  Practically 
all  the  metropolitan  newspapers  of  largest  circulation  were 
against  me ;  in  New  York  City  fifteen  out  of  every  sixteen 
copies  of  papers  issued  were  hostile  to  me.  I  won  by  a 
popular  majority  of  about  two  million  and  a  half,  and  in 
the  electoral  college  carried  330  votes  against  136.  It  was 
by  far  the  largest  popular  majority  ever  hitherto  given  any 
Presidential  candidate. 

My  opponents  during  the  campaign  had  laid  much  stress 
upon  my  supposed  personal  ambition  and  intention  to  use 
the  office  of  President  to  perpetuate  myself  in  power.  I 
did  not  say  anything  on  the  subject  prior  to  the  election, 
as  I  did  not  wish  to  say  anything  that  could  be  construed 
into  a  promise  offered  as  a  consideration  in  order  to  secure 
votes.  But  on  election  night,  after  the  returns  were  in  I 
issued  the  following  statement:  "The  wise  custom  which 
limits  the  President  to  two  terms  regards  the  substance 
and  not  the  form,  and  under  no  circumstances  will  I  be  a  can- 
didate for  or  accept  another  nomination." 

The  reason  for  my  choice  of  the  exact  phraseology  used 
was  twofold.  In  the  first  place,  many  of  my  supporters 
were  insisting  that,  as  I  had  served  only  three  and  a  half 
years  of  my  first  term,  coming  in  from  the  \'ice-Presidency 
when  President  McKinley  was  killed,  I  had  really  had  only 
one  elective  term,  so  that  the  third  term  custom  did  not 
apply  to  me ;  and  I  wished  to  repudiate  this  suggestion. 
I  believed  then  (and  I  believe  now)  the  third  term  custom 
or  tradition  to  be  wholesome,  and,  therefore,  I  was  deter- 
mined to  regard  its  substance,  refusing  to  quibble  over  the 
words  usually  employed  to  express  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  did  not  wish  simply  and  specifically  to  say  that  I  would 
not  be  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  in  1908,  because  if 
I  had  specified  the  year  when  I  would  not  be  a  candidate,  it 
would  have  been  widely  accepted  as  meaning  that  I  intended 
to  be  a  candidate  some  other  year;  and  I  had  no  such  inten- 
tion, and  had  no  idea  that  I  would  ever  be  a  candidate  again. 
Certain  newspaper  men  did  ask  me  if  I  intended  to  apply 
my  prohibition  to   191 2,  and  I  answered  that  I  was  not 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


423 


thinking  of  1912,  nor  of  1920,  nor  of  1940,  and  that  I  must 
decline  to  say  anything  whatever  except  what  appeared  in 
my  statement. 

The  Presidency  is  a  great  office,  and  the  power  of  the 
President  can  be  eflFcctively  used  to  secure  a  rcnomination, 
especially  if  the  President  has  the  support  of  certain  great 
political  and  financial  interests.  It  is  for  this  reason,  and 
this  reason  alone,  that  the  wholesome  principle  of  continuing 
in  office,  so  long  as  he  is  willing  to  serve,  an  incumbent  who 
has  proved  capable,  is  not  applicable  to  the  Presidency. 
Therefore,  the  American  people  have  wisely  established 
a  cust  m  against  allowing  any  man  to  hold  that  office  for 
more  han  two  consecutive  terms.  But  every  shred  of 
power  'hich  a  President  exercises  while  in  office  vanishes 
absolut  'y  when  he  has  once  left  office.  An  ex-President 
stands  precisely  in  the  position  of  any  other  private  citizen, 
and  has  not  one  particle  more  power  to  secure  a  nomina- 
tion or  election  than  if  he  had  never  held  the  office  at  all  — 
indeed,  he  probably  has  less  because  of  the  very  fact  that  he 
has  held  the  office.  Therefore  the  reasoning  on  which  the 
anti-third  term  custom  is  based  has  no  application  whatever 
to  an  ex-President,  and  no  application  whatever  to  anything 
except  consecutive  terms.  As  a  barncr  of  precaution 
against  more  than  two  consecutive  terms  the  custom  embod- 
ies a  valuable  principle.  Applied  in  any  other  way  it 
becomes  a  mere  formula,  and  like  all  formulas  a  potential 
source  of  mischievous  confusion.  Having  this  in  mind, 
I  regarded  the  custom  as  applying  practically,  if  not  just 
as  much,  to  a  President  who  had  been  seven  and  a  half 
years  in  office  as  to  one  who  had  been  eight  years  in  office, 
and  therefore,  in  the  teeth  o{  a  practically  unanimous  demand 
from  my  own  party  that  I  accept  another  nomination,  and 
the  reasonable  certainty  that  the  nominatif)n  would  be 
ratified  at  the  polls,  1  felt  that  the  substance  of  the  custom 
applied  to  me  in  1908.  On  the  other  hand,  it  had  no  appli- 
cation whatever  to  any  human  being  s;tve  where  it  was 
invoked  in  the  case  >4  a  man  Je-iring  ;t  third  consecutive 
term.  Having  given  such  substantial  proof  of  my  own 
regard  for  the  custom,  I  deem  it  a  duty  to  add  this  comment 


4H     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT- AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


on  it.  I  believe  that  it  is  well  to  have  a  custom  of  this 
kind,  to  be  generally  observed,  but  that  it  would  be  very 
unwise  to  have  it  definitely  hardened  into  a  Constitutional 
prohibition.  It  is  not  desirable  ordinarily  that  a  man  should 
stay  in  r.ffice  twelve  consecutive  years  as  President ;  but 
most  certainly  the  American  people  are  fit  to  take  care 
of   themselves,    an  i    stand    in    no   need   of   an    irrevocable 

sclf-denyinp  ordinance. 
They  should  not  bind 
themselves  never  to 
take  action  which  un- 
der some  quite  con- 
ceivable circumstances 
it  might  be  to  their 
great  interest  to  take. 
It  is  obviously  of  the 
last  importance  to  the 
safety  of  a  democracy 
that  in  time  of  real 
peril  it  should  be  able 
to  command  the  serv- 
ice of  every  one 
among  its  citizens  in 
the  precise  position 
where  the  service  ren- 
dered will  be  most  val- 

"ThiTo  was  'inc  cartoon  maele  while  I  was  President,    Uablc.       It    WOuld  bc    a 
in  which  I  aprK-anil  intiilcpi ally,  that  was  always  a    u       •    u*    J  r 

tT.at  favorite  of  mine.    It  picturcl  an  old  fellow  with     DCnignted        policy        m 

chin  whiskers,  a  farmer Jn  his  shirt-sleeves  with  his    s  U  C  h      CVCnt       tO      dis- 
IxKits  off,  >itimK  liefore  the  tire,  readmg  the  Presi-  ,.f        ,        ,         ,      - 

dent's messiige"  quality  absolutely  from 

the  highest  office  a  man 
who  while  holding  it  had  actually  shown  the  highest  ca- 
pacity to  exercise  its  powers  with  the  utmost  effect  for  the 
public  defense.  If,  for  instance,  a  tremendous  crisis  oc- 
curred at  the  end  of  the  second  term  of  a  man  like  Lin- 
coln, as  such  a  crisis  occurred  at  the  end  of  his  first  term, 
it  would  be  a  veritable  calamity  if  the  American  people 
were  forbidden  to  continue  to  use  the  services  of  the 
one    man   whom   they    knew,    and  did  not   merely   guess, 


Kriim  the  ( Vini/ilf/i .  <  lilcuKo  ('artmin  by  A   1,  l.<ivcy. 

His    I-AVOKITK   AVTHOR. 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


42s 


could  carry  them  through  the  crisis.  The  third  term  tradi- 
tion has  no  value  whatever  except  as  it  applies  to  a  third 
consecutive  term.  While  it  is  well  to  keep  it  as  a  cus- 
tom, it  would  be  a  mark  both  of  weakness  and  unwisdom 
for  the  American  people  to  embody  it  into  a  Constitutional 
provision  which  could  not  do  them  good  and  on  some  given 
occasion  might  work  real  harm. 

There  was  one  cartoon  made  while  I  was  President,  in 
which  I  appeared  incidentally,  that  was  always  a  great 
favorite  of  mine.  It  pictured  an  old  fellow  with  chin 
whiskers,  a  farmer,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  with  his  boots  off, 
sitting  before  the  fire,  reading  the  President's  Message. 
On  his  feet  were  stockings  of  the  kind  I  have  seen  hung  up 
by  the  dozen  in  Joe  Ferris's  store  at  Medora,  in  the  days 
when  I  used  to  come  in  to  town  and  sleep  in  one  of  the 
rooms  over  the  store.  The  title  of  the  picture  was  "His 
Favorite  Author."  This  was  the  old  fellow  whom  I  always 
used  to  keep  in  my  mind.  He  had  probably  been  in  the 
Civil  War  in  his  youth  ;  he  had  worked  hard  ever  since  he 
left  the  army;  he  had  been  a  good  husband  and  father; 
he  had  brought  up  his  boys  and  girls  to  work ;  he  did  not 
wish  to  do  injustice  to  any  one  else,  but  he  wanted  justice 
done  to  himself  and  to  others  like  him  ;  and  I  was  bound  to 
secure  that  justice  for  him  if  it  lay  in  my  power  to  do  so.* 


'  I  bc-lii'vc  I  realized  fairly  well  this  ambition.  I  shall  turn  to  my  enemies  to 
attest  the  truth  of  this  statement.  The  \e\v  York  Sun,  shortly  before  the  National 
Convention  of  li>04,  spoke  of  me  as  follows  : 

"President  kiM)scvelt  holds  that  his  nomination  b\-  the  National  Republican  Con- 
vention of  l'>04  is  an  assured  thint;.  He  makes  no  concealment  of  his  conviction, 
and  it  is  unreservedly  shared  by  his  friends.  W'c  think  President  Roosevelt  is 
ri^'ht. 

"'["here  are  stronp  and  convincins  reasons  why  the  President  should  feel  that 
success  is  witliin  his  ^jrasp.  lie  has  used  the  opportunities  that  he  found  or  created, 
and  he  has  used  them  with  consummate  skill  and  unileiiiahle  success. 

"The  President  has  disarmed  all  his  enemies.  Kvery  weapon  they  had,  new  or 
old,  has  been  taken  from  them  and  added  to  the  now  unassailable  Rtxisevelt  arsenal. 
\Vhy  should  people  wonder  that  \Ir.  Bryan  cliuL's  to  silver  ?  lias  not  Mr.  R,x)sevelt 
absorbed  and  sequestered  every  \estit.'e  of  the  Kansas  Cii\  platform  that  had  a 
shred  of  practical  value  ?  Suppose  tliat  Mr.  liryan  had  been  elected  President. 
What  r<>■.;l•^  ••;<■  ha\i-  ricrompli^hed  i-i-.tv.p.ired  wit!-,  •.•.ii.i!  Mr.  R'.xwevcll  has  accom- 
plished ?  Will  his  most  passionate  followers  pretend  for  one  moment  that  Mr. 
Bryan  could  have  conceived,  much  less  enforced,  any  such  pursuit  of  the  trusts  as 
that  which  Mr.   R(H)sevelt  has  just  brought  to  a  triumphant  issue  ?     Will  Mr. 


n' 


426     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


Vi 


Bryan  himself  intimate  that  the  Federal  courts  would  have  turned  to  his  projects 
the  friendly  countenance  which  they  have  lent  to  those  of  Mr.  Roosevelt? 

"Where  is  'government  by  injunction'  gone  to?  The  very  emptiness  of  that 
once  potent  phrase  is  beyond  description  !  A  regiment  of  Bryans  could  not  com- 
pete with  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  harrjing  the  trusts,  in  bringing  wealth  to  its  knees,  and 
in  converting  into  the  palpable  actualities  of  action  the  wildest  dreams  of  Bryan's 
campaign  orators.     He  has  outdone  them  all. 

"And  how  utterly  the  President  has  routed  the  pretensions  of  Bryan,  and  of  the 
whole  Democratic  horde  in  respect  to  organized  labor !  How  empty  were  all  their 
professions,  their  mouthings  and  their  bowlings  in  the  face  of  the  simple  and  un- 
pretentious achievements  of  the  President  !  In  his  own  straightforward  fashion 
he  inflicted  upon  capital  in  one  short  hour  of  the  coal  strike  a  greater  humiliation 
than  Bryan  could  have  visited  upon  it  in  a  century.  He  is  the  leader  of  the  labor 
unions  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  put  them  alove  the  law  and  above 
the  Constitution,  because  for  him  they  are  the  .American  people."  (This  last,  I 
need  hardly  say,  is  merely  a  rhetorical  method  of  saying  that  1  gave  the  labor  union 
precisely  the  same  treatment  as  the  corporation.) 

Senator  La  Follette,  in  the  issue  of  his  magazine  immediately  following  my  leav- 
ing the  Presidency  in  March,  1909,  wrote  as  follows : 

"Roosevelt  steps  from  the  stage  gracefully.  He  has  ruled  his  party  to  a  large 
extent  against  its  will.  He  has  played  a  large  part  in  the  world's  work,  for  the  past 
seven  years.  The  activities  of  his  remarkably  forceful  personality  have  been  so 
manifold  that  it  will  be  long  before  his  true  rating  will  be  fixed  in  the  opinion  of  the 
race.  He  is  said  to  think  that  the  three  great  things  done  by  him  are  the  »nder- 
taking  of  the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal  and  its  rapid  and  successful  carry- 
ing forward,  the  making  of  peace  between  Russia  and  Japan,  and  the  sending 
around  the  world  of  the  fleet. 

"These  are  important  things,  but  many  will  be  slow  to  think  them  his  greatest 
services.  The  Panama  Canal  will  surely  serve  mankind  when  in  operation;  and 
the  manner  of  organizing  this  work  seems  to  be  fine.  But  no  one  can  yet  say 
whether  this  project  will  be  a  gigantic  success  or  a  gigantic  failure;  and  the  task  is 
one  which  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have  been  undertaken  and  carried  through 
some  time  soon,  as  historic  periods  go,  anyhow.  The  Peace  of  Portsmouth  was  a 
great  thing  to  be  responsible  for,  and  Roosevelt's  good  offices  undoubtedly  saved  a 
great  and  bloody  battle  in  Manchuria.  But  the  war  was  fought  out,  and  the 
parties  ready  to  quit,  and  there  is  reason  to  think  that  it  was  only  when  this  situation 
was  arrived  at  that  the  good  offices  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  were,  more 
or  less  indirectly,  invited.  The  fleet's  cruise  was  a  strong  piece  of  diplomacy,  by 
which  we  informed  Japan  that  we  will  send  our  fleet  wherever  we  please  and  when- 
ever we  please.     It  worked  out  well. 

"But  none  of  these  things,  it  will  seem  to  many,  can  compare  with  some  of 
Roosevelt's  other  achievements.  Perhaps  he  is  loth  to  take  credit  as  a  reformer, 
for  he  is  prone  to  spell  the  word  with  question  marks,  and  to  speak  disparingly  of 
'reform.' 

"But  for  all  that,  this  contemner  of  'reformers'  made  reform  respectable  in  the 
United  States,  and  this  rebukerof  'muck-rakers'  has  been  the  chief  agent  in  making 
the  history  of  'muck-raking'  in  the  United  States  a  National  one,  conceded  to  be 
useful.  He  h?s  preached  from  the  White  House  many  doctrines;  but  among  them 
he  has  left  impressed  on  the  .American  mind  the  one  great  truth  of  economic  justice 
couched  in  the  pithy  and  stinging  phrase  'llie  square  deal."  The  task  of  making 
reform  respectable  in  a  commercialized  world,  and  of  giving  the  Nation  a  slogan  in 
a  phrase,  is  greater  than  the  man  who  performed  it  is  likely  to  think. 

"And,  then,  there  is  the  great  and  statesmanlike  movement  for  the  conservation 


THE   PRESIDENCY 


427 


of  our  National  resources,  into  which  Roosevelt  so  energetically  threw  himself  at  a 
time  when  the  Nation  as  a  whole  knew  not  that  we  are  ruining  and  bankrupting 
ourselves  as  fast  as  we  can.  This  is  probably  the  greatest  thing  Roosevelt  did,  un- 
doubtedly. This  globe  is  the  capital  stock  of  the  race.  It  is  just  so  much  coal 
and  oil  and  gas.  This  may  be  economized  or  wasted.  The  same  thing  is  true  of 
phosphates  and  other  mineral  resources.  Our  water  resources  are  immense,  and 
we  are  only  just  beginning  to  use  them.  Our  forests  have  been  destroyed;  they 
must  be  restored.  Our  soils  are  being  depleted ;  they  must  be  built  up  and  con- 
served. 

"These  questions  are  not  of  this  day  only  or  of  this  generation.  They  belong 
all  to  the  future.  Their  consideration  requires  that  high  moral  tone  which  regards 
the  earth  as  the  home  of  a  posterity  to  whom  we  owe  a  sacred  duty, 

"This  immense  idea  Roosevelt,  with  high  statesmanship,  dinned  into  the  ears 
of  the  Nation  until  the  Nation  heeded.  He  held  it  so  high  that  it  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  the  neighboring  nations  of  the  continent,  and  will  so  spread  and  intensify 
that  we  will  soon  see  the  world's  conferences  devoted  to  it. 

"Nothing  can  be  greater  or  finer  than  this.  It  is  so  great  and  so  fine  that  when 
the  historian  of  the  future  shall  speak  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  he  is  likely  to  say 
that  he  did  many  notable  things,  among  them  that  of  inaugurating  the  movement 
which  finally  resulted  in  the  square  deal,  but  that  his  greatest  work  was  inspiring  and 
actually  beginning  a  world  movement  for  staying  terrestrial  waste  and  saving  for 
the  human  race  the  things  upon  which,  and  upon  which  alone,  a  great  and  peaceful 
and  progressive  and  happy  race  life  can  be  founded. 

"What  statesman  in  all  history  has  done  anything  calling  for  so  wide  a  view  and 
for  a  purpose  more  lofty  ?" 


CHAFIER  XI 


THE    NATUIL,\L    RESOURCES    OF   THE    NATION 

WHEN  Governor  of  Xcw  York,  as  I  have  already- 
described,  I  had  been  in  consultation  with  (Jifford 
Pinchot  and  F".  H.  Newell,  and  had  shaped  my 
recommendations  about  forestry  largely  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  suggestions.  Like  other  men  who  had 
thought  about  the  national  future  at  all,  I  had  been  growing 
more  and  more  concerned  over  the  destruction  of  the  forests. 
While  I  had  lived  in  the  West  I  had  come  to  realize  the 
vital  need  of  irrigation  to  the  country,  and  I  had  been  both 
amused  and  irritated  by  the  attitude  of  Eastern  men  who 
obtained  from  Congress  grants  of  National  money  to  de- 
velop harbors  and  yet  fought  the  use  of  the  Nation's  power 
to  develop  the  irrigation  work  of  the  West.  Major  John 
Wesley  Powell,  the  explorer  of  the  Grand  Caiion,  and 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey,  was  the  first  man  who 
fought  for  irrigation,  and  he  lived  to  see  the  Reclamation 
Act  passed  and  construction  actually  begun.  Mr.  F.  H. 
Newell,  the  present  Director  of  the  Reclamation  Service, 
began  his  work  as  an  assistant  hydraulic  engineer  under 
Major  Powell ;  and,  unlike  Powell,  he  appreciated  the  need 
of  saving  the  forests  and  the  soil  as  well  as  the  need  of  irri- 
gation. Between  Powell  and  Newell  came,  as  Director  of 
the  Geological  Survey,  Charles  D.  Walcott,  who,  after 
the  Reclamation  .Act  was  ri>ssed,  by  his  force,  pertinacity, 
and  tact,  succeeded  in  putting  the  act  into  effect  in  the  best 
possible  manner.  Senator  Francis  G.  Newlands,  of  Nevada, 
fought  hard  for  the  cause  of  reclamation  in  Congress.  He 
attempted  to  get  his  State  to  act,  and  when  that  proved 
hopelc'  ■-  to  get  the  Nation  to  act ;  and  was  ably  assisted  by 
Mr.  G.  H.  Maxwell,  a  Californian,  who  had  taken  a  deep 
interest    in    irrigation  matters.      Dr.  W  J  McGee   was  one 

428 


THK  NATIRAL  RKSOURCKS  OF  THE  NATION    429 

of  the  leaders  in  all  the  later  stajjes  of  the  movement.  But 
Gifford  Pinchot  is  the  man  to  whom  the  nation  owes  most 
for  what  has  been  accomplished  as  regards  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  natural  resources  of  our  country.  He  led,  and 
indeed  during  its  most  vital  period  embodied,  the  fight  for 
the  preservation  through  use  of  our  forests.  He  played  one 
of  the  leading  parts  in  the  effort  to  make  the  National 
Ciovernment  the  chief  instrument  in  developing  the  irrigation 
of  the  arid  West.  He  was  the  foremost  leader  in  the  great 
struggle  to  coordinate  all  our  social  and  governmental 
forces  in  the  efTort  to  secure  the  adoption  of  a  rational  and 
farseeing  policy  for  securing  the  conservation  of  all  our 
national  resources.  He  was  already  in  the  Government 
service  as  head  of  the  Forestry  Bureau  when  I  became  Presi- 
dent; he  continued  throughout  my  term,  not  only  as  head 
of  the  Forest  service,  but  as  the  moving  and  directing  spirit 
in  most  of  the  conservation  work,  and  as  counsellor  and 
assistant  on  most  of  the  other  work  connected  with  the 
internal  affairs  of  the  country.  Taking  into  account  the 
varied  nature  of  the  work  he  did,  its  vital  importance  to  the 
nation  and  the  fact  that  as  regards  much  of  it  he  was  practi- 
cally breaking  new  ground,  and  taking  into  account  also 
his  tireless  energy  and  activity,  his  fearlessness,  his  complete 
disinterestedness,  his  single-minded  devotion  to  the  interests 
of  the  plain  people,  and  his  extraordinary  efficiency,  I 
believe  it  is  but  just  to  say  that  among  the  many,  many 
public  officials  who  under  my  administration  rendered 
literally  invaluable  service  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  he,  on  the  whole,  stood  first.  A  few  months  after 
I  left  the  Presidency  he  was  removed  from  office  by  President 

Taft.  „      .,  . 

The  first  work  I  took  up  when  I  became  President  was  the 
work  of  reclamation.  Immediately  after  T  had  cooie  to 
Washington,  after  the  assassination  of  President  Mckinley, 
while  staying  at  the  house  of  my  sister,  Mrs.  Covvles,  before 
goina  into  the  White  House.  Newell  and  Pinchot  called  upon 
me  and  laid  before  me  their  plans  for  National  irrigation  of 
the  arid  lands  of  the  West,  and  for  the  consolidation  of  the 
forest  work  of  the  Government  in  the  Bureau  of  Forestry. 


» 


430     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

At  that  time  a  narrowly  legalistic  point  of  view  toward 

natural  resources  obtained  in  the  Departments,  and  c  n- 

trollcd     the     Governmental     administrative      machinery. 

Through  the  General  Land  Office  and  other  Government 

bureaus     the    public    resources    were    being    handled    and 

disposed  of   m   accordance   with    the   small    considerations 

of    petty    legal     formalities,     instead    of     for    the     large 

purposes  of  constructive    development,   and    vhe    habit  of 

deciding    whenever  possible,   in   favor  of  private  interests 

against  the  public  welfare  was  firmly  fixed.     It  was  as  little 

custonriary  to  favor  the  bona-fide  settler  and  home  builder 

as  against  the  strict  construction  of  the  law,  as  it  was  to  usj 

the  law  in  thwarting  the  operations  of  the  land  grabbers      \ 

technical  compliance  with  the  letter  of  the  law  was  all  that 

was  required. 

.tP^'k!'^-^^  i^^^  ?"■;  "^^""'  resources  were  inexhaustible 
still  obtained,  and  there  was  as  yet  no  real  knowledge  of 
their  extent  and  condition.  The  relation  of  the  conservation 
ot  natural  resources  to  the  problems  of  National  welfare  and 
^atlonal  efficiency  had  not  yet  dawned  on  the  public  mind. 
The  reclamation  of  and  public  lands  in  the  Wm  was  still  a 
matter  for  private  enterprise  alone;  and  our  magnificent 
wirr'u  ""'-.T'u  '*«  «"P"bpossibilities  for  public  usefulness, 
was  dealt  with  by  the  National  Government  not  as  a  unit 
but  as  a  disconnected  series  of  pork-barrel  problems,  whose 
on  y  real  interest  was  in  their  effect  on  the  reelection  or 

I  r^cfrl.  t  ^  ^°"g'".^r'!l^".  here  and  there-  a  theory  which, 
1  regret  to  say,  still  obtains. 

rolh  ^'^'*j  f  ^^^^  ^^'"""r  '"  ^^'  National  economy  was  still 
regarded  solely  as  that  of  a  grower  of  food  to  be  eaten  by 
others    while  the  human  needs  and  interests  of  himself  and 

nUinn  '  ?".f  '  n '^''"  ^'•"  '■^'""•"^^  wholly  outside  the  recog- 
nitton  ot  the  Government. 

hpM  ln!i^  ^a'^-  "'^'^'^-  ^^•o"gfd  to  the  United  States  were 
held  and  administered  m  one  Department,  and  all  the  forest- 
ers in  Government  employ  were  in  another  Department 
1  orests  and  foresters  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  each 
other.  The  National  Forests  in  the  West  (then  called  forest 
reserves)  were  wholly  inadequate  in  area  to  meet  the  purpo  e 


THE  NATURAL  RESOURCES  OF  THE  NATION    431 


for  w'mcIi  tht-y  wcro  crratcd,  whilf  the  need  for  forest  protec- 
tion in  the  Kast  had  not  yet  begun  to  enter  the  public  mind. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  tilings  when  Newell  and  Pin- 
chot  called  (»ii  me.  I  was  a  warm  believer  in  reclamation 
and  in  forestry,  and,  after  listening  t<»  my  two  guests,  I 
asked  them  to  prepare  material  on  the  subject  for  me  to  use 
in  my  first  message  to  Congress,  of  December  3,  1901. 
This  message  laid  the  foundation  for  the  development  of 
irrigation  and  forestry  during  the  next  seven  and  one-half 
years.  It  set  forth  the  new  attitude  toward  the  natural 
resources  in  the  words :  "The  Forest  and  water  problems 
are  perhaps  the  most  vital  internal  problems  of  the  United 
States." 

On  t;ic  day  the  message  was  read,  a  committee  of  Western 
Senators  and  Congressmen  was  organized  to  prepare  a  Rec- 
lamation Bill  in  accordance  with  the  recommendations. 
By  far  the  most  eflFective  of  the  Senators  in  drafting  and 
pushing  the  bill,  which  became  known  by  his  name,  was 
Newlands.  The  draft  of  the  bill  was  worked  over  by  me  and 
others  at  several  conferences  and  revised  in  important 
particiiL'-rs ;  my  active  interference  was  necessary  to  pre- 
vent it  from  being  made  unworkable  by  an  undue  insistence 
upon  States  Rights,  in  accordance  with  the  efforts  of  Mr. 
Mondell  and  other  Congressmen,  who  consistently  fought 
for  local  and  private  interests  as  against  the  interests  of 
the  people  as  a  whole. 

On  June  17,  1902,  the  Reclamation  Act  was  passed.  It 
set  aside  the  proceeds  of  the  disposal  of  public  lands  for  the 
purpose  of  reclaiming  the  waste  areas  of  the  arid  West  by 
irrigating  lands  otherwise  worthless,  and  thus  creating  new 
homes  upon  the  land.  The  money  so  appropriated  was  to  be 
repaid  to  the  Government  by  the  settlers,  and  t«.  be  used 
again  as  a  revolving  fund  continuously  available  for  the  work. 

The  impatience  of  the  Western  people  to  see  immediate 
results  from  the  Reclamation  Act  was  so  great  that  red  tape 
,vas  disregarded,  and  the  work  was  push-  J  forward  at  a 
rate  previously  unknown  in  Govcrninerii  afTairs.  Later, 
as  in  almost  all  such  cases,  there  followed  the  criticisms  of 
alleged  illegality  and  haste  which  are  so  easy  to  make  after 


432      rilKODORK    R()OSK\  KLT- AN   ALTOBICX]RAPHY 

rt'sults  havf  Ih'cii  actomplishcJ  and  tlu-  ru-i-cl  for  the  nu-asiircs 
without  wliich  nothing  coiikl  havi'  Ihtii  Joir-  has  ^oiu-  l)y. 
Thi'si-  criticistiis  wen-  in  charaitt-r  procisily  thi-  same  as  that 
niadi-  ahoiit  thi'  acquisition  of  Panama,  the  scttli'mcnt  of 
thf  anthracitf  coal  strike,  the  suit>  against  the  big  trusts, 
the  stopping  of  the  panic  of  1(^07  by  tlie  action  of  tiie 
Executive  concerning  the  'lennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Omi- 
pany;  and,  in  short,  about  most  of  the  best  work  done 
during  ni)  administration. 

With  tlie  Reclamation  work,  as  with  much  other  work 
under  me,  tlie  men  in  charge  were  given  to  understand  that 
they  must  get  into  the  water  if  they  would  learn  to  swim; 
and,  furtherriiore,  they  learned  to  know  that  if  they  acted 
honestly,  and  boldly  and  fearlessly  accepted  responsibility, 
I  would  stand  by  them  to  the  limit.  In  this,  as  in  every 
other  case,  in  tlie  end  the  boldness  of  the  action  fully 
justified  itself. 

Every  item  of  the  whole  great  plan  of  Reclamation  now  in 
effect  was  undertaken  between  I«p2  and  1906.  By  the 
spring  of  K/og  the  work  was  an  assured  success,  and  the 
(jovernment  had  become  fully  committed  to  its  continuance. 
The  work  of  Reclamation  was  at  first  under  the  United 
States  Cieological  Survey,  of  which  Charles  D.  Walcott  was 
at  that  time  Director.  In  the  spring  of  190S  the  United 
States  Reclamation  "^^LTvice  was  established  to  carry  it  on, 
under  the  direction  ot  Frederick  Hayes  Newell,  to  whom  the 
inception  of  the  plan  was  due.  Newell's  single-minded 
devotion  to  this  great  task,  the  constructive  imagination 
which  enabled  him  to  conceive  it,  and  the  executive  power 
and  high  character  through  which  l;e  and  his  assistant, 
Arthur  I*.  Davis,  built  up  a  model  service  —  all  these  have 
made  him  a  model  servant.  The  final  proof  of  his  merit 
is  supplied  by  the  character  and  records  of  the  men  who  later 
assailed  him. 

Although  the  gross  expenditure  under  the  Reclamation 
Act  is  not  yet  as  large  as  that  for  the  Panama  Canal,  the 
engineering  obstacles  to  be  overcome  have  been  ahnosl  as 
great,  and  the  political  impediments  many  times  greater. 
The  Reclamation  work  had  to  be  carried  on  at  widely  sepa- 


£     c 


5  a 


(2 


ar 


434     THEODORK   ROOSKVELT- AivJ   AUTOP'OGRAPHY 


r 
t. 

i 

I'lr 


ratrd  points,  rfiiiotf  from  railroads,  under  the  most  difficult 
pioncrr  conditions.  Tlu'  tv\cnt\-c'ight  projects  begun  in 
tlu'  years  i(/)2  to  i(p(^)  contemplated  the  irrigation  of  more 
than  three  million  acres  and  the  watering  of  more  than  thirty 
thousand  farms.  Many  of  the  dams  required  for  this  huge 
task  are  higher  than  any  previously  built  anywhere  in 
the  world.  The)  feed  main-line  canals  over  seven  thousand 
miles  in  total  length,  and  involve  minor  constructions,  such  as 
culverts  and  bridges,  tens  of  thousands  in  number. 

What  the  Reclamation  Act  has  done  for  the  country  is  by 
no  means  limited  to  its  material  accomplishment.  This  Act 
and  the  results  flowing  from  it  have  helped  powerfully  to 
prove  to  the  Nation  that  it  can  handle  its  own  resources  and 
exercise  direct  and  business-like  control  over  them.  The 
population  which  the  Reclamation  Act  has  brought  into  the 
arid  West,  while  comparatively  small  when  compared  with 
that  in  the  more  closely  inhabited  East,  has  been  a 
most  effective  contribution  to  the  National  life,  for  it 
has  gone  far  to  transform  the  social  aspect  of  the  West, 
niaking  for  the  stability  of  the  institutions  upon  which 
the  welfaie  of  the  whole  country  rests:  it  has  substituted 
actual  homemakers,  who  have  settled  on  the  land  with  their 
families,  for  huge,  migratory  bands  of  sheep  herded  by  the 
hired  shepherds  of  absentee  owners. 

The  recent  attacks  on  the  Reclamation  Service,  and  on 
Mr.  Newell,  arise  in  large  part,  if  not  altogether,  from  an 
organized  effort  to  repudiate  the  obligation  of  the  settlers  to 
repay  the  Ciovernment  for  what  it  has  expended  to  reclaim 
the  land.  The  repudiation  of  any  debt  can  always  find 
supporters,  and  in  this  case  it  has  attracted  the  support 
not  only  of  certain  men  among  the  settlers  who  hope  to  be 
relieved  of  paying  what  they  owe,  but  also  of  a  variety  of 
unscrupulous  politicians,  some  highly  placed.  It  is  unlikely 
that  their  efforts  to  deprive  the  West  of  the  revolving  Ir- 
rigation fund  will  succeed  in  doing  anything  but  discredit- 
ing these  politicians  in  the  sight  of  all  lK)nest  men. 

When  in  the  spring  of  lyil  I  visited  the  Rcxjsevelt  Dam 
in  Arizona,  and  opened  the  reservoir,  I  made  a  short  speech 
to  the  assembled  people.     Among  other  things,  I  said  to  the 


THE   NATURAL   RKSOURCLS  OF   THE  NATION    435 


i 
a 


engineers  present  that  in  the  name  of  all  good  citizens  I 
thanked  them  for  their  admirable  work,  as  efficient  as  it  was 
honest,  and  conducted  according  to  the  highest  standards  of 
public  service.  As  I  looked  at  the  tine,  strong,  eager  faces 
of  those  of  the  force  who  were  present,  and  thought  of  ihe 
similar  men  in  the  service,  in  the  higher  positions,  who  were 
absent,  and  who  were  no  less  responsible  for  the  work  done, 
I  felt  a  foreboding  that  they  would  never  receive  any  real 
recognition  for  their  achievement  ;  and,  only  half  humor- 
ously, I  warned  them  not  to  expect  any  credit,  or  any  satis- 
faction, except  their  own  knowledge  that  they  had  done 
well  a  first-class  job,  for  that  probably  the  only  attention 
Congress  would  ever  pay  them  would  be  to  investigate 
them.  Well,  a  year  later  a  Congressional  Committee 
actually  did  investigate  them.  The  investigation  was 
instigated  by  some  unscrupulous  local  politicians  and  by 
some  settlers  who  wished  to  be  relieved  from  paying  their 
just  obligations;  and  the  members  of  the  Committee  joined 
in  the  attack  on  as  fine  and  honorable  a  set  of  public  servants 
as  the  (lovernment  has  ever  had;  an  attack  made  on  them 
solely  because  they  were  honorable  and  efficient  and  loyal 
to  the  interests  both  of  the  (loverimient  and  the  settlers. 

When  I  became  President,  the  Bureau  of  Forestry  (since 
1905  the  United  States  Forest  Ser\ice)  was  a  small 
but  growing  organization,  under  Clifford  I*inclu)t,  occupied 
mainly  with  laying  the  foundation  of  American  forestry  by 
scientific  study  of  the  forests,  and  with  the  promotion  ot 
forestry  on  private  lands.  It  contained  all  the  trained 
foresters  in  the  (lOvernment  service,  but  had  charge  of  no 
public  timberland  whatsoever.  The  (lOvernment  forest 
reserves  of  that  day  were  in  the  care  of  a  Division  in  the 
Cieneral  Land  Office,  under  the  management  of  clerks 
wholly  without  knowledge  of  forestry,  few  if  any  of  whom  had 
ever  seen  a  foot  of  the  timberlands  for  which  they  were  re- 
sponsible. Thus  the  reserves  were  neither  well  protected 
nor  well  used.  There  were  no  foresters  among  the  men  who 
had  charge  of  the  National  Forests,  and  no  (lovernment 
forests  in  charge  of  the  (jovernment  foresters. 

In  my  first  message  to  Congress  I  strongly  recommended 


f 

1% 


436     Tni':ODORK    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  consolidation  of  the  forest  work  in  the  hands  of  the 
trained  men  of  the  Bureau  of  Forestry.  This  recom- 
mendation was  repeated  in  other  messages,  but  Congress 
did  not  give  effect  to  it  until  three  years  later.  In  the  mean- 
time, by  thorough  study  of  the  Western  public  timberlands, 
the  groundwork  was  laid  for  the  responsibilities  which  were 
to  fall  upon  the  Bureau  of  P'orestry  when  the  care  of  the 
National  Forests  came  to  be  transferred  to  it.  It  was  evident 
that  trained  American  Foresters  would  be  needed  in  con- 
siderable numbers,  and  a  forest  school  was  established  at 
Yale  to  supply  them. 

In  1901,  at  my  suggestion  as  President,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior,  Mr.  Hitchcock,  made  a  formal  request  for 
technical  adv'ice  from  the  Bureau  of  Forestry  in  handling 
the  National  Forests,  and  an  extensive  examination  (  !  their 
condition  and  needs  was  accordingly  taken  up.  The  same 
year  a  study  was  begun  of  the  proposed  Appalachian  Na- 
tional F\)rest,  the  plan  of  which,  already  formulated  at  that 
time,  has  since  been  carried  out.  A  year  later  experimental 
planting  on  the  .National  Forests  was  also  begun,  and  studies 
preparatory  to  the  application  of  practical  forestry  to  the 
Indian  Reservations  were  undertaken.  In  1903,  so  rapidly 
did  the  public  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Forestry  increase, 
that  the  examination  of  land  for  new  forest  reserves  was 
added  to  the  study  of  those  already  created,  the  forest 
lands  of  the  various  States  were  studied,  and  cooperation 
with  several  of  them  in  the  examination  and  handling  of 
their  forest  lands  was  undertaken.  While  these  practical 
tasks  were  pushed  forward,  a  technical  knowledge  of  Ameri- 
can Forests  was  rapidly  accumulated.  The  special  knowl- 
edge gained  was  inadi-  public  in  printed  bulletins  ;  and  at  the 
same  time  the  Bureau  undertook,  through  the  newspaper 
and  periodical  press,  to  make  all  the  people  of  the  United 
States  acquainti-d  with  the  needs  and  the  purposes  of  practi- 
cal forestry.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  lias  ever  been 
elsewliere  umUr  the  (iovernment  such  I'fFective  publicity  — ■ 
pul>lieit\  purel)  in  l\\v  interest  of  the  people  -  at  so  low  a 
cost.  Befori'  the  educational  work  of  the  Forest  Service 
was  stopped  by  the  Taft  .\dministration,  it  was  securing  the 


THE  NATURAL   RKSOl'RCKS  OF  THE  NATION    437 

publication  of  facts  about  forestry  in  f^fty  million  copies  of 
newspapers  a  month  at  a  total  expense  ..f  ;fi/XXX)  a  year. 
Not  one  cent  has  ever  been  paid  by  the  Forest  Service  to  any 
publication  of  any  kind  for  the  printing;  of  this  material. 
It  was  L'iven  out  freely,  and  published  without  cost  because 
it  was  news.  Without  this  publicity  the  l<orest  Service 
could  not  have  survived  the  attacks  made  upon  it  by  the 
representatives  of  the  great  special  interests  in  Congress; 
nor  could  forestry  in  America  have  made  the  rapid  progress 

The  result  of  all  the  work  outlined  above  was  to  bring 
together  in  the  Bureau  of  Forestry,  by  the  end  of  1904.  the 
only  body  of  forest  experts  under  the  dovernment,  and 
nracticallv  all  of  the  first-hand  informati.m  about  the  pubhc 
forests  which  was  then  in  existence.  In  1905,  the  ..byious 
foolishness  of  continuing  to  separate  the  foresters  and  the 
forests,  reenforced  by  the  action  of  the  I-irst  National  h.rest 
Congress,  held  in  \Vashingt..n,  brought  about  the  Act  ot 
Febmary  l,  u^^,  which  transferred  the  Natu-nal  Forests 
from  the  care  of  the  Interior  Department  to  the  Department 
of  Agriculture,  and  resulted  in  the  creatic.n  of  the  present 
United  States  Forest  Service. 

The  men  upon  whom  the  responsibility  ot  handling  some 
sixtv  million  acres  of  National  F..resi  lands  was  thus  thrown 
were  ready  f..r  the  work,  both  in  the  othc-  and  m  the  held, 
because  they  had  been  preparing  f;.r  it  for  more  than  hve 
years.  Without  delav  they  proceeued,  under  the  leadership 
of  Pinchot,  to  applv  to  the  new  work  the  p.inciples  thev  had 
already  formulated.  One  o{  these  was  to  open  all  the 
resources  of  the  National  Forests  to  regulated  use.  Anotlier 
was  that  of  putting  every  part  ..f  the  land  to  that  use  m 
which  it  would  best  serve  the  public,  h.llowing  this 
principle,  the  Act  of  June  11,  i<p6,  was  drawn,  and  its 
passage  was  secured  from  Congress.  Ins  law  t  irou. 
open  to  settlement  all  land  in  the  National  -orests  that  is 
found,  on  examinati.m,  to  be  chiefly  valuable  tor  agriculture. 
Hitherto  all  such  land  had  been  closed  to  the  settler. 

The    principles    thus    formulated    and    applied    may    be 
summed  up  in  the  statement  that  the  rights  ot  the  y 


ic 


ifcjifcMC=vj  '■^■a*.  J»  tf/.ram 


I   H    I   I     —II  II    II  ^ 


43«     THKODORK    ROOSFAF.LT  -  A\    AirOBIOGRAPTIV 


to  the  natural  resources  outweigh  private  rijjhts,  and  must 
be  given  its  first  consideration.  I'ntil  that  time,  in  dealing 
with  the  National  l'"orests,  and  the  public  lands  generall\, 
private  rights  had  almost  unifornil\-  bei'u  allowed  to  over- 
balance [niblic  rights.  The  change  we  made  was  right, 
and  was  vitally  necessarv  ;  but.  of  course,  it  created  bitter 
oppf)sition  from  private  interests. 

One  of   the   principles   whose   application   was  the  source 
of  much  hostilit)  was  this  :    It  is  better  for  the  Government  to 
help  a  poor  man  to  make  a  li\  ing  for  his  family  than  to  help 
a  rich  man  make  more  profit  for  his  company.     This  prin- 
ciple was  too  sound  to  be  fought  openly.      It'is  the  kind  of 
principle  to  which  (Politicians  delight  to  pa\-  unctuous  homage 
in  words.      But  we  translated  the  words  into  deeds  ;  and  when 
they  found  that  this  was  the  casi,  many  rich  men,  especially 
sheep  owners,  were  stirred  to  hostility,  and  they  used   the 
Congressmen   they   controlled   to  assault   us        getting  most 
aid   from   certain   demagogues,   who   were  equally   glad   im- 
properly to  denounce  rich  men  in  public  and  improperly  to 
serve  them  in  private.     The  Forest  Service  established  and 
enforced  regulations  which  favored  the  settler  asagainstthe 
large  stock  owner;  required  that  necessary  reductions  in  the 
stock  grazed  on  any  .National  Forest  should  bear  first  on  the 
big  inan,  before  the  few  head  of  the  small  man,  upon  which 
the  living  of  his  family  depended,  were  reduced;    and  made 
grazing  in  the  .National  Forests  a  help,  instead  of  a  hindrance, 
to   permanent    settlement.     .\s   a    result,   the   small   settlers 
and   their   families   became,  on    the   whole,  the  best   friends 
the  Forest  Service  has;    although  in  places  their  ignorance 
was  played  on  b_\-  demagoguis  to  influence  them  against  the 
policy  that  was  primaril\-  for  their  own  interest. 

.\nother  principle  which  led  to  the  bitterest  antagonism  of 
all  vyas  this  whoever  (except  a  bona-fide  settler)  takes 
public  property  for  private  profit  should  pay  for  what  he 
gets.  In  the  etTort  to  appl_\-  this  principle,  the  Forest 
Ser\ice  obtained  a  decision  from  the  .\ttorney-General  that 
it  was  legal  to  make  the  men  who  grazed  sheep  and  cattle 
on  the  .National  Forests  pay  for  what  they  got.  Accordingly, 
in  the  suninu  r  of  n>o6,  tor  the  fir.st  lime,  such  a  charge  was 


THE  NATURAL   RESOURCKS  OF  THE   NATION     439 


made ;    and,  in  the  face  of  the  bitterest  opposition,  it  was 

collected.  1      .u 

Up  to  the  time  the  National  Forests  were  put  under  the 
charge  of  the  Forest  Service,  the  Interior  Department  had 
made  no  effort  to  establish  public  regulation  and  control  of 
water  powers.  Upon  the  transfer,  the  Service  mimediately 
began  its  tight  to  handle  the  power  resources  of  the  National 
Forests  so  as  to  prevent  speculation  and  mon<)p(>l:  and  to 
vield  a  fair  return  to  the  (lovernment.  On  May  I,  1906, 
kn  \ct  was  passed  granting  the  use  of  certain  power  sites 
in  Southern  California  to  the  Kdison  Klectnc  1  ovver  Com- 
panv,  which  Act,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Service,  limited 
the 'period  of  the  permit  to  forty  years,  and  required  the 
pavment  of  an  annual  rental  by  the  company,  the  same 
conditions  which  were  thereafter  adopted  by  the  Service  as 
the  basis  for  all  permits  for  power  development.  1  hen 
began  a  vigorous  fight  against  the  position  of  the  Service 
bv  the  water-power  interests.  The  right  to  charge  for 
water-power  development  was,  however,  sustained  by  the 
Attornev-deiieral.  . 

In  1^)07,  the  area  of  the  National  i'orests  was  increased 
bv  Presidential  proclamation  more  than  forty-three  million 
acres;  the  plant  necessarv  for  the  full  use  of  the  I'orests, 
such  as  roads,  trails,  and  telephone  lines,  began  to  be  pro- 
vided on  a  large  scale;  the  interchange  of  field  and  othce 
men,  so  as  to  prevent  the  antagonism  between  them,  which 
is  so  destructive  of  efiiciency  in  most  great  businesses,  vyas 
established  a.  a  permanent  policy  ;  and  the  really  effective 
management  of  the  enormous  area  of  the  National  Forests 
began  to  be  secured.  1     •     1 

With  all  this  activitv  in  the  field,  the  progress  oi  technical 
forestry  and  popular  education  was  iv-t  neglected,  in 
1907,  for  example,  sixtv-one  publications  on  various  phases  ot 
forestrv,  with  a  total 'of  more  than  a  million  copies,  were 
issued,' as  against  three  publications,  with  a  total  of  eighty- 
two  thousand  copies,  in  icpi-  By  this  time,  also,  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  servants  of  the  special  interests  in  Congress  to 
the  Forest  Service  had  become  strongly  developed,  and  more 
time  appeared  to  be  spent  in  the  yearly  attacks  upon  it 


440     THi:()DORE    ROOSEVKLT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

during  the  passage  of  the  appropriation  bills  than  on  all 
other  Government  Bureaus  put  together.  Every  year  the 
Forest  Service  had  to  fight  for  its  life. 

One  incident  in  these  attacks  is  worth  recording.  While 
the  Agricultural  Appropriation  Bill  was  passing  through 
the  Senate,  in  1907,  Senator  P'ulton,  of  Oregon,  secured 
an  ameiidnu-nt  providing  that  the  President  could  not  set 
aside  any  additional  National  Forests  in  the  six  Northwestern 
States.  This  meant  retaining  some  sixteen  million  of  acres 
to  be  exploited  by  land  grabbers  and  by  the  representatives 
of  the  great  special  interests,  at  the  expense  of  the  public 
interest.  But  for  four  years  the  Forest  Service  had  been 
gathering  field  notes  as  to  what  forests  ought  to  be  set  aside 
in  these  States,  and  so  was  prepared  to  act.  It  was  equally 
undesirable  to  veto  the  whole  agricultural  bill,  and  to  sign 
it  with  this  amendment  effective.  Accordingly,  a  plan  to 
create  the  necessary  National  Forest  in  these  States  before 
the  Agricultural  Bill  could  be  passed  and  signed  was  laid 
before  me  by  Mr.  Pinchot.  1  approved  it.  The  necessary 
papers  were  immediately  prepared.  I  signed  the  last 
proclamation  a  couple  of  days  before,  by  my  signature, 
the  bill  became  law;  and,  when  the  friends  of  the  special 
interests  in  the  Senate  got  their  amendment  through 
and  woke  up,  they  discovered  that  sixteen  million  acres 
of  timberland  had  been  saved  for  the  people  by  putting 
th  m  in  the  National  Forests  before  the  land  grabbers 
C'  Id  get  at  them.  The  opponents  of  the  Forest  Service 
tamed  handsprings  in  tlu-ir  wrath;  and  dire  were  their 
I  iivats  against  the  Fxecutive;  but  the  threats  could  not  be 
carried  out,  and  were  reall>  only  a  tribute  to  the  efficiency 
of  our  action. 

By  190S,  the  fire  prevention  work  of  the  Forest  Service 
had  Ihcmiuc  so  succissfiil  that  eighty-six  per  cent  of  the  fires 
that  did  occur  witc  held  down  to  an  area  of  five  acres  or 
less,  and  the  timber  sales,  which  yielded  i<6o.OOO  in  I<)05,  in 
1 90S  produced  )^S!5o,ooo.  in  the  same  year,  in  addition  to 
the  work  on  the  National  Forests,  the  responsibility  for 
the  proper  handling  of  Indian  timberlands  was  laid  upon  the 
Forest  Service,  where  it  remained  with  great  benefit  to  the 


THE  NATURAL  RESOURCES  OF  THE  NATION      441 

Indians  until  it  was  withdrawn,  as  a  part  of  the  attack  on 
the  Conservation  policy  made  after  I  left  office. 

By  March  4,  1909,  nearly  half  a  million  acres  of  agri- 
cultural land  in  the  National  Forests  had  been  opened  to 
settlement  under  the  Act  of  June  il,  1906.  The  business 
management  of  the  Forest  Service  became  so  excellent, 
thanks  to  the  remarkable  executive  capacity  of  the  Associate 
Forester,  Overton  W.  Price  (removed  after  I  left  office), 
that  it  was  declared  by  a  well-known  firm  of  business  or- 
ganizers to  compare  favorably  with  the  best  managed  of  the 
great  private  corporations,  an  opinion  which  was  confirmed 
by  the  report  of  a  Congressional  investigation,  and  by  the 
report  of  the  Presidential  Committee  on  Department  method. 
The  area  of  the  National  Forests  had  increased  from  43  to 
194  million  acres;  the  force  from  about  500  to  more  than 
3000.  There  was  saved  for  public  use  in  the  National 
Forests  more  Government  timberland  during  the  seven  and 
a  half  years  prior  to  March  4,  1909,  than  during  all  previous 
and  succeeding  years  put  together. 

The  idea  that  the  Executive  is  the  steward  of  the  public 
welfare  was  first  formulated  and  given  practical  effect  in 
the  Forest  Service  by  its  law  officer,  George  Woodruff. 
The  laws  were  often  insufficient,  and  it  became  well  nigh 
impossible  to  get  them  amended  in  the  public  interest  when 
once  the  representatives  of  privilege  in  Congress  grasped 
the  fact  that  I  would  sign  no  amendment  that  contained 
anything  not  in  the  public  interest.  It  was  necessary  to 
use  what  law  was  already  in  existence,  and  then  further  to 
supplement  it  by  Executive  action.  The  practice  of  examin- 
ing every  claim  to  public  land  before  passing  it  into  private 
ownership  offers  a  got)d  example  of  the  policy  in  question. 
This  practice,  which  has  since  become  general,  was  first 
applied  in  the  National  Forests.  Enormous  areas  of  valu- 
able public  timberland  were  thereby  saved  from  fraudulent 
acquisition;  more  than  2i;o,ooo  acres  were  thus  saved  in  a 
single  case. 

This  theory  of  stewardship  in  the  interest  of  the  public 
was  well  illustrated  by  the  establishment  of  a  water-power 
policy.     Until  the  Forest  Service  changed  the  plan,  water- 


!!    ■! 


rif 


THK  NATIRAL   RKSOlRCIS  OF  TlIK   NATIOX    443 


powers  oil  tlu'  navigable  sticau's.  mi  tlir  public  doinaiii, 
amJ  in  tlu'  National  Forests  were  ;4i\in  away  for  nothing;, 
and  substaiitiall)  without  muslion,  to  whocvi-r  asked  for 
ihcni.  At  last,  uiidi-i  tin-  priiuipU-  tint  public  property 
should  br  paid  for  and  shoultl  iiot  be  permanently  granted 
away  when  such  periuanent  j»rant  is  axoidable,  the  Forest 
Service  established  the  policy  of  rij;ulatinj;  the  use  of  power  in 
the  National  FOrests  in  the  public  interest  and  making  a 
charge  for  value  received.  'I  his  was  the  beginning  of  the 
water-power  policy  iu)vv  substantially  accepted  by  the  public, 
and  doubtless  soon  to  be  enacted  into  law.  But  there  was 
at  the  outset  violent  opposition  to  it  on  the  part  of  the 
water-power  companies,  and  such  representatives  of  their 
views  in  Congress  as  Messrs.  'Fawney  and  Bede. 

Many  bills  were  introduced  in  Congress  aimed,  in  one  way 
or  another,  at  relieving  the  power  companies  of  control  and 
payment.  When  these  bills  reaclud  me  I  refused  to  sign 
them;  and  the  injur)  to  the  public  interest  which  would 
follow  their  passage  was  brought  sharply  to  public  attention 
in  my  message  of  February  z(\  i<>oS.  'Fhe  bills  made  no 
further  progress. 

Under  the  same  principle  of  stewardship,  railroads  and 
other  corporations,  which  applied  for  and  were  given  rights 
in  the  National  Foresl^,  were  regulated  in  the  use  of  those 
rights.  In  short,  the  public  resources  in  charge  of  the  For- 
est Service  were  handled  franklv  and  openl\  for  the  public 
welfare  under  the  clear-cut  and  clearly  set  forth  principle 
that  the  public  rights  come  first  and  private  interest  second. 

The  natural  result  of  this  new  altitude  was  the  assertion 
in  every  form  by  the  representatives  of  special  interests  that 
the  Forest  Service  was  exceeding  its  legal  powers  and 
thwarting  the  intention  of  Congress.  Suits  were  begun 
wherever  the  chance  arose.  It  is  worth  recording  that, 
in  spite  of  the  novelty  and  complexity  of  the  legal  questions 
it  had  to  face,  no  court  of  last  resort  has  ever  decided  against 
the  Forest  Service.  This  statement  includes  two  unani- 
mous decisions  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  th<'  I'nited  States 
(U.  S.  vs.  (irimaud,  220  U.  S.,  506,  and  Light  ?s.  L.  S.,  220 
U.  S.,  523). 


444     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

In  its  administration  of  the  National  P'orcsts,  the  Forest 
Sirvicc  found  that  valuable  coal  land  wtre  in  danger  of 
passinj?  into  private  ownership  withoi  '  adequate  money 
return  to  the  Government  and  without  safeguard  against 
monopoly ;  and  that  existing  legislation  was  insufficient 
to  prevent  this.  When  this  condition  was  brought  to  my 
attention  I  withdrew  from  all  forms  of  entry  about  sixty- 
eight  million  acres  of  coal  land  in  the  United  States,  including 
Alaska.  The  refusal  of  Congress  to  act  in  the  public  interest 
was  solely  responsible  for  keeping  these  lands  from  entry. 

The  Conservation  movement  was  a  direct  outgrowth  of 
the  forest  movement.  It  was  nothing  more  thaii  the  appli- 
cation to  our  other  natural  resources  of  the  principles  which 
had  been  worked  out  in  connection  with  the  forests.  Without 
the  basis  of  public  sentiment  which  had  been  built  up  for 
the  protection  of  the  forests,  and  without  the  example  of 
public  foresight  in  the  protection  of  this,  one  of  the  great 
natural  resources,  the  Conservation  movement  would  have 
been  impossible.  The  first  formal  step  was  the  creation 
of  the  Inland  Waterways  Commission,  appointed  on  Mai^h 
14,  1907.  In  my  letter  appointing  the  Commission,  I 
called  attention  to  the  value  of  our  streams  as  great  natural 
resources,  and  to  the  need  for  a  progressive  plan  for  their 
development  and  control,  and  said:  "It  is  not  possible  to 
properly  frame  so  large  a  plan  as  this  for  the  control  of  our 
rivers  without  taking  account  of  the  orderly  development 
of  other  natural  resources.  Therefore  I  ask  that  the  Inland 
Waterways  Commission  shall  consider  the  relations  of  the 
streams  to  the  use  of  all  the  great  permanent  natural  re- 
sources and  their  conservation  for  the  making  and  main- 
tenance of  prosperous  homes." 

Over  a  year  later,  writing  on  the  report  of  the  Commission, 
I  said  : 

"The  preliminary  Report  of  the  Inland  Waterways 
Commission  was  excellent  in  every  way.  It  outlines  a 
general  plan  of  waterway  improvement  which  when  adopted 
will  give  assurance  that  the  improvements  will  yield  practical 
results  in  the  way  of  increased  navigation  and  water  transpor- 
tation.    In  every  essential  feature  the  plan  recommended 


THK   NATURAL   RKSOURCES  OF  THE  NATION    445 


by  the  Commission  is  new.  In  the  principle  of  coiirdinating 
all  uses  of  the  waters  and  treating  each  waterway  system 
as  a  unit ;  in  the  principle  of  correlating  water  traffic  with 
rail  and  other  lana  traffic ;  in  the  principle  of  expert  initia- 
tion of  projects  in  accordance  with  commercial  foresight 
and  the  needs  of  a  growing  country ;  and  in  the  principle  of 
cooperation  between  the  States  and  the  FederaUIovernnieiit 
in  the  administration  and  use  of  waterways,etc.  ;tlRgeneral 
plan  proposed  by  the  Commission  is  new,  and  at  the  same- 
time  sane  and  simple.  The  plan  deserves  unqualified 
support.  I  regret  that  it  has  not  yet  been  adopted  by  C«)n- 
gress,j3ut  1  am  confident  that  ultimately  it  will  be  adopted." 

The  most  striking  incident  in  the  history  <)f  the  Commis- 
sion was  the  trip  down  the  Mississippi  River  in  October, 
1907,  when,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  I  was  the 
chief  guest.  This  excursion,  with  the  meetings  which  were 
held  and  the  wide  public  attention  it  attracted,  gave  the 
development  of  our  inland  waterways  a  new  standing  in 
public  estimation.  During  the  trip  a  letter  was  prepared 
and  presented  to  me  asking  me  to  summon  a  conference 
on  the  conservation  of  natural  resources.  My  intention 
to  call  such  a  conference  was  publicly  announced  at  a  great 
meeting  at  Memphis,  Tenn. 

In  the  November  following  I  wrote  to  each  of  the  Governors 
of  the  several  States  and  to  the  Presidents  of  various  impor- 
tant National  Societies  concerned  with  natural  resources, 
inviting  them  to  attend  the  conference,  which  took  place 
May  13  to  15,  1908,  in  the  East  Room  of  the  White  House. 
It  is  doubtful  whether,  except  in  time  of  war,  any  new  idea 
of  like  importance  has  ever  been  presented  to  a  Nation 
and  accepted  by  it  with  such  effectiveness  and  rapidity,  as 
was  the  case  with  this  Conservation  movement  when  it  was 
introduced  to  the  .\mcrican  people  by  the  Conference  of 
Governors.  The  first  result  was  the  unanimous  declaration 
of  the  Governors  of  all  the  States  and  Territories  upon  the 
subject  of  Conservation,  a  document  which  ought  tobehung 
in  every  schoolhouse  throughout  the  land.  A  further 
result  was  the  appointment  of  thirty-six  State  Conservation 
Commissions  and,  on  June  8,  1908,  of  the  National  Conser- 


MICROCOPY   RESOLUTION   TEST   CHART 

ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    2i 


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Down  tuk  Mississippi. 


THE   NATURAL   RESOURCES   OF   THE   NATION     447 


¥. 


vation  Commission.  The  task  of  this  Commission  was  to 
prepare  an  inventory,  the  first  ever  made  for  any  nation, 
of  all  the  natural  resources  which  underlay  its  property. 
The  making  of  this  inventory  was  made  possible  by  an 
Kxecutive  order  which  placed  the  resources  of  the  Ciovern- 
ment  Departments  at  the  command  of  the  Commission,  and 
made  possible  the  organization  of  subsidiary  committees  by 
which  the  actual  facts  for  the  inventory  were  prepared  and 
digested.  CliflFord  Pinchot  was  made  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mission. 

The  report  of  the  National  Conservation  Commission 
was  not  only  the  first  inventory  of  our  resources,  but  was 
unique  in  the  history  of  Government  in  the  amount  and 
variety  of  information  brought  together.  It  was  completed 
in  six  months.  It  laid  squarely  before  the  American  people 
the  essential  facts  regarding  our  natural  resources,  when 
facts  were  greatly  needed  as  the  basis  for  constructive  action. 
This  report  was  presented  to  the  Joint  Conservation  Con- 
gress in  December,  at  which  there  were  prer.ent  Governors  of 
twenty  States,  representatives  of  twenty-two  State  Con- 
servation Commissions,  and  representatives  of  sixty  National 
organizations  previously  represented  at  the  White  House 
conference.  The  report  was  unanimously  approved,  and 
transmitted  to  me,  January  1 1,  1909.  On  January  22,  1909, 
I  transmitted  the  report  of  the  National  Conservation  Com- 
mission to  Congress  with  a  Special  Message,  in  which  it 
was  accurately  described  as  "one  of  the  most  fundamentally 
important  documents  ever  laid  before  the  American  people." 

The  Joint  Conservation  Conference  of  December,  1908, 
suggested  to  me  the  practicability  of  holding  a  North 
American  Conservation  Conference.  I  selected  GifTord 
Pinchot  to  convey  this  invitation  in  person  to  Lord  Cjrcy, 
Governor  General  of  Canada;  to  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier;  and 
to  President  Diaz  of  Mexico;  giving  as  reason  for  my 
action,  in  the  letter  in  which  this  invitation  was  conveyed, 
the  fact  that :  "  It  is  evident  that  natural  resources  are  not 
limited  by  the  boundary  lines  which  separate  nations,  and 
that  the  need  for  conserving  them  upon  this  continent  is 
as  wide  as  the  area  upon  which  they  exist." 


i! 
iii 


448     THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

In  response  to  this  invitation,  which  included  the  colony 
o{    Newfoundland,    the    Commissioners    assembled    m    the 
White  House  on  February  1 8,  1909.     The  American  Com- 
missioners were  Cnfford  Pinchot,  Robert  Bacon,  and  James 
R.  (larfield.     After  a  session  continuing  through  five  days, 
the  Conference  united  in  a  declaration  of  principles,  and 
suggested  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  "that  all 
nations   should   be   invited   to  join   together   in   conference 
on    the    subject   of   world    resources,    and    their   mventory, 
conservation,  and  wise  utilization."     Accordingly,  on  Febru- 
ary 19,  1909,  Robert  Bacon,  Secretary  of  State,  addressed 
to  forty-five  nations  a  letter  of  invitation  "to  send  delegates 
to  a  conference  to  be  held  at  The  Hague  at  such  date  to  be 
found  convenient,  there  to  meet  and  consult  the  like  delegates 
of  the  other  countries,  with  a  view  of  considering  a  general 
plan  for  an  inventory  of  the  natural  resources  of  the  world 
and  to  devising  a  uniform  scheme  for  the  expression  of  the 
results  of  such  inventory,  to  the  end  that  there  may  be  a 
general    understanding   and    appreciation    of    the    world  s 
supply  of  the  material  elements  which  underlie  the  develop- 
ment of  civilization  and  the  welfare  of  the  peoples  of  the 
earth."     After  I  left  the  White  House  the  project  lapsed. 

Throughout  the  early  part  of  my  Administration  the 
public  land  policy  was  chiefly  directed  to  the  defense  of  the 
public  lands  against  fraud  and  theft.  Secretary  Hitchcock  s 
efforts  along  this  line  resulted  in  the  Oregon  land  fraud  cases, 
which  led  to  the  conviction  of  Senator  Mitchell,  and  which 
made  Francis  J.  Heney  known  to  the  American  people 
as  one  of  their  best  and  most  eflFective  servants. 
These  land  fraud  prosecutions  under  Mr.  Heney,  together 
with  the  study  of  the  public  lands  which  preceded  the  passage 
of  the  Reclamation  Act  in  1902,  and  the  investigation  of 
land  titles  in  the  National  Forests  by  the  Forest  Service, 
all  combined  to  create  a  clearer  understanding  of  the  need  of 
land  law  reform,  and  thus  led  to  the  appointment  of  the 
Public  Lands  Commission.  This  Commission,  appointed 
by  me  on  October  22,  1903,  was  directed  to  report  to  the 
President:  "Upon  the  condition,  operation,  and  effect  of 
the   present  land   laws,   and   to   recommend   such   changes 


THK   NATURAL   RhSOURCF.S   OF  THE   NATION     449 


as  arc  needed  to  eflFect   the   largest   practicable  disposition 
of  the  public  lands  to  actual  settlers  who  will  build  per- 
manent homes  upon  them,  and  to  secure  in  permanence  the 
fullest  and  most  effective  use  of  the  resources  of  the  public 
lands."     It  proceeded  without  loss  of  time  to  make  a  per- 
sonal study  on  the  ground  of  public  land  problems  through- 
out the  West,  to  confer  with  the  Ciovernors  and  other  public 
men  most  concerned,  and  to  assemble  the  inforrnation  con- 
cerning  the    public    lands,    the    laws    and    decisions    which 
governed  them,  and  the  methods  of  defeating  or  evading 
those  laws,  which  was  already  in  existence,  but  which  re- 
mained unformulated  in  the  records  of  the  General  Land 
Office  and  in  the  minds  of  its  employees.     The  Public  Lands 
Commission  made  its  first  preliminary  report  on  March  7, 
1904.     It  found  "that  die  present  land  laws  do  not  fit  the 
conditions  of  the  remaining  public  lands,"  and  recommended 
specific  changes  to  meet  the  public  needs.     A  year  later  the 
second  report  of  the  Commission  recommended  still  further 
changes,  and  said  "The  fundamental  fact  that  characterizes 
the  situation  under  the  present  land  laws  is  this,  that  the 
number  of  patents  issued  is  increasing  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  number  of  new  homes."     This  report  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  the  movement  for  Go vcrnwent  control  of  the  open 
range,  and  included  by  far  the  most  complete  statement 
ever  made  of  the  disposition  of  the  public  domain. 

Among  the  most  difficult  topics  considered  by  the  Public 
Land  Commission  was  that  of  the  mineral  land  laws.  This 
subject  was  referred  by  the  Commission  to  the  American 
Institute  of  Mining  Engineers,  which  reported  upon  it 
through  a  Committee.  This  Committee^  made  the  very 
important  recommendation,  among  others,  "that  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  should  retain  title  to  all  minerals, 
including  coal  and  oil,  in  the  lands  of  unceded  territory, 
and  lease  the  same  to  individuals  or  corporations  at  a  fixed 
rental."  The  necessity  for  Jiis  action  has  since  come  to  be 
very  generally  recognized.  Another  recommendation,  since 
partly  carried  into  eflFect,  was  for  the  separation  of  the 
surface  and  the  minerals  in  lands  containing  coal  and  oil. 
-^e  of  recent  vears  oroved  inefficient : 


Our  land  laws 


. years  pr 


'I'HE   NATURAL   RESOURCES   OF    IHE   NATION     451 


the  land  laws  themselves  have  not  been  so  much  to  blame 
as  the  lax,  unintelligent,  and  often  corrupt  administration 
of  these  laws.  The  appointment  on  March  4,  1907,  of  James 
R.  (jarficld  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior  led  to  a  new  era  in 
the  interpretation  and  enforcement  of  the  laws  governing 
the  public  lands.  His  administration  of  the  Interior  De- 
partment was  beyond  comparison  the  best  we  have  ever  had. 
It  was  based  primarily  on  the  conception  that  it  is  as  much 
the  duty  f)f  public  land  officials  to  help  the  honest  settler 
get  title  to  his  claim  as  it  is  to  prevent  the  lf)oting  of  the 
public  lands.  The  essential  fact  about  public  land  frauds 
is  not  merely  that  public  property  is  stolen,  but  that  every 
claim  fraudulently  acquired  stands  in  the  way  of  the  making 
of  a  home  or  a  livelihood  by  an  honest  man. 

As  the  study  of  the  public  land  laws  proceeded  and  their 
administration  improved,  a  public  land  policy  was  formu- 
lated in  which  the  saving  of  the  resources  on  the  public  do- 
main for  public  use  became  the  leading  principle.  There 
followed  the  withdrawal  of  coal  lands  as  already  described, 
of  oil  lands  and  phosphate  lands,  and  finally,  just  at  the 
end  of  the  Administration,  of  water-power  sites  on  the  public 
domain.  These  withdrawals  were  made  by  the  Executive  in 
order  to  afford  to  Congress  the  necessary  opportunity  to 
pass  wise  laws  dealing  with  their  use  and  disp  isal ;  and  the 
great  crooked  special  interests  fought  them  with  incredible 
bitterness. 

Among  the  men  of  this  Nation  interested  in  the  vital 
problems  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  ordinary  hard-working 
men  and  women  of  the  Nation,  there  is  none  whose  interest 
has  been  more  intense,  and  more  wholly  free  from  taint  of 
thought  of  self,  than  that  of  Thomas  Watson,  of  Georgia. 
While  President  I  often  discussed  with  him  the  condition 
of  women  on  the  small  farms,  and  on  the  frontier,  the  hard- 
ship of  their  lives  as  compared  with  those  of  the  men,  and 
the  need  for  taking  their  welfare  into  consideration  in  what- 
ever was  done  fi>r  the  improvement  of  life  on  the  land.  I 
also  went  over  the  matter  with  C  S,  Barrett,  of  CK'f)rgia,  a 
leader  in  the  Southern  farmers'  movement,  and  with  other 
men,  such  as  Henry  Wallace,  Dean  L.  H.  Bailey,  of  Cornell, 


452     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and   Kenyon   Butterfield.     One   man   from  whose  advice  I 
especially  profited  was  not  an  American,  but  an  Irishman, 
Sir  Horace  Plunkett.     In  various  conversations  he  described 
to  me  and  my  close  associates  the  reconstruction  of  farm 
life  which  had  been  accomplished  by  the  Agricultural  Organ- 
ization Society  of  Ireland,  of  which  he  was  the  founder  and 
the  controlling  force ;    and  he  discussed  the  application  of 
similar  methods  to  the  improvements  of  farm  life  in  the 
United    States.     In    the   spring   of    1908,    at    my    request, 
Plunkett  conferred  on  the  subject  with  Garfield  and  Pinchot, 
and  the  latter  suggested  to  him  the  appointment  of  a  Com- 
mission on  Country  Life  as  a  means  for  directing  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Nation  to  the  problems  of  the  farm,  and  for 
securing  the  necessary  knowledge  of  the  actual  conditions 
of  life  in  the  open  country.     After  long  discussion  a  plan  for  a 
Country  Life  Commission  was  laid  before  me  and  approved. 
The  appointment  of  the  Commission  followed  in  August, 
1908.     In  the  letter  of  appointment  the  reasons  for  creating 
the  Commission  were  set  forth  as  follows:  "I  doubt  if  any 
other   nation   can   bear  comparison   with   our  own   in   the 
amount  of  attention  given  by  the  Government,  both  Federal 
and   State,   to  agricultural   matters.     But   practically    the 
whole  of  this  effort  has  hitherto  been  directed  toward  increas- 
ing the  production  of  crops.     Our  attention  has  been  concen- 
trated  almost  exclusively  on   getting  better  farming.     In 
the  beginning  this  was  unquestionably  the  right  thing  to 
do.     The  farmer  must  first  of  all  grow  good  crops  in  order  to 
support  himself  and  his  family.     But  when  this  has  been 
secured,  the  effort  for  better  farming  should  cease  to  stand 
alone,  and  should  be  accompanied  by  the  effort  for  better 
business  and  better  living  on  the  farm.     It  is  at  least  as 
important  that  the  farmer  should  get  the  largest  possible 
return  in  money,  comfort,  and  social  advantages  from  the 
crops  he  grows,  as  that  he  should  get  the  largest  possible 
return  in  crops  from  the  land  he  farms.     Agriculture  is  not 
the    whole  of  country   life.     The  great   rural   interests   are 
human  interests,  and  good  crops  are  of  little  value  to  the 
farmer  unless  they  open  the  door  to  a  good  kind  of  life  on 
the  farm." 


THE   NATURAL    RKSOl'RCFS   OF   THE   NATION     453 


Tlu-  Comiuissidii  011  Country  Life  did  work  of  capital 
importanci'.  By  nuans  t)f  a  widely  circulated  set  of  ques- 
tions the  Commission  informed  itself  upon  th"  status  (jf 
country  life  throughout  the  Nation.  Its  trip  through 
the  East,  South,  and  West  brought  it  into  contact  with 
large  numbers  of  practical  farmers  and  their  wives,  secured 
for  the  Commissioners  a  most  valuable  body  of  first  hand 
information,  id  laid  the  foundation  for  the  remarkable 
awakening  of  interest  in  country  life  which  has  since  taken 
place  throughout  the  Nation. 

One  of  the  most  illuminating  —  and  incidentally  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  amusing  —  scries  of  answers  sent  to 
the  Commission  was  from  a  farmer  in  Missouri.     He  stated 
that  he  had  a  wife  and  1 1  living  children,  he  and  his  wife 
being  each  52  years  old  ;   and  that  they  owned  520  acres  of 
land    without    any    mortgage    hanging    over    their    heads. 
He  had  himself  done  well,  and  his  views  as  to  why  many 
of  his  neighbors  had  done  less  well  arc  entitled    to    con- 
sideration.    These  views  are  expressed  in  terse  and  vigorous 
English  ;    they  cannot  always  be  quoted  in  full.     He  states 
that  the  farm  homes  in  his  neighborhood  arc  not  as  good 
as  they  should  be  because  too  many  of  them  are  encumbered 
by   mortgages;     that   the   schools   do   not    train    bo\  s   and 
girls  satisfactorily  for  life  on  the  farm,  because  they  allow 
them  to  get  an  idea  in  their  heads  that  city  life  is  better, 
and  that  to  remedy  this  practical  farming  should  be  taught. 
To  the  question  whether   the  farmers    and  their   wives  in 
his  neighborhood  are  satisfactorily  organized,  he  answers : 
"Oh,  there  is  a  little  one-horse  grange  gang  in  our  locality, 
and  every  darned  one  thinks  they  ought   to  be  a   king." 
To  the  question,  "Are  the  renters  of  farms  in  your  neighbor- 
hood making  a    satisfactory    living.^"  he    answers:    '_'^'o; 
because  they  move  about  so  much  hunting   a  better  job.' 
To  the  question,  "Is  the  supply  of  farm  labor  in  your  neigh- 
borhood satisfactory.?"  the  answer  is:  "^'o;^  because  the 
people  have  gone  out  of  the  baby  business";  and  when 
asked  as  to  the  remedy,  he  answers,  "Give  a  pension  to  every 
mother  who  gives  birth  to  seven  living  boys  on  American 
soil."     To  the  question,   "Are  the  conditions  surroundmg 


454      I'HKODOKK    ROOSIAKI/P   -  A\    AnOBKK'.RAPIIV 


liintl  labor  on  tlu'  faun  in  your  nriglilxuliooci  satisfactory  to 
ihr  hircii  iin-n  ?"  \u'  answers:  "^'l•s,  unless  lie  is  a  ilrunken 
cuss,"  adding  that  he  would  like  Ui  blow  up  the  stillhouscs 
and  root  out  whisky  and  beer.  To  the  question,  "Arc  the 
sanitary  conditions  on  the  farms  in  your  neighborhood 
satisfactory  ?  "  he  answers  :  "\o ;  too  careless  about  chicken 
yards,  and  the  like,  and  poorly  covered  wells.  In  one  well 
on  neighbor's  farm  I  counted  seven  snakes  in  the  wall  of  the 
well,  and  they  used  the  water  daily  :  his  wife  dead  now  and 
lie  is  looking  for  another."  He  ends  by  stating  that  the  most 
important  single  thing  to  be  done  for  the  betterment  of 
country  life  is  "good  roads";  but  in  his  answers  he  shows 
very  clearly  that  most  important  of  all  is  the  individual 
equation  of  the  man  or  woman. 

Like  the  rest  of  the  Commissions  described  in  this  chapter, 
the  Country  Life  Commission  cost  the  Government  not 
one  cent,  but  laid  before  the  President  and  the  country  a 
mass  of  information  so  accurate  and  so  vitally  important 
as  to  disturb  the  serenity  of  the  advocates  of  things  as  they 
are;  and  therefore  it  incurred  the  bitter  opposition  of  the 
reactionaries.  The  report  of  the  Country  Life  Commission 
was  transmitted  to  Congress  by  me  on  February  9,  1909. 
In  the  accompanying  message  I  asked  for  $25,000  to  print 
and  circulate  the  leport  and  to  prepare  for  publication 
the  immense  amount  of  valuable  material  collected  by  the 
Commission  but  still  unpublished.  The  reply  made  by 
Congress  vvas  not  only  a  refusal  to  appropriate  the  money, 
but  a  positive  prohibition  against  continuing  the  work. 
The  Tawney  aiTiendment  to  the  Sundry  Civil  bill  forbade 
the  President  to  appoint  any  further  Commissions  unless 
specifically  authorized  by  Congress  to  do  so.  Had  this 
prohibition  been  enacted  earlier  and  complied  with,  it 
would  have  prevented  the  appointment  of  the  six  Roosevelt 
Commissions.  But  I  would  not  have  complied  with  it. 
Mr.  Tawney,  one  of  the  most  efficient  representatives  of  the 
cause  of  special  privilege  as  against  public  interest  to  be 
found  in  the  House,  was  later,  in  conjunction  with  Senator 
Hale  and  ethers,  able  to  induce  my  successf)r  to  accept  their 
view.     As  what  was  almost  my  last  official  act,  I  replied  to 


THE   NATURAL    RESOURCKS   OF    THE   NATION     455 

Congress  that  if  I  did  lu.t  bclic-vc  the  Tawncy  amendment 
to  be  unconstitutional  I  would  veto  the  Sundry  Civil  bill 
whirh  contained  it,  and  that  if  I  were  remaming  m  office 
I  would  refuse  to  obey  it.  The  memorandum  ran  in  part: 
"The  chief  object  of  this  provision,  however,  is  to  prevent  the 
Executive  repeating  what  it  has  done  wirhin  the  last  year 
in  connection  with  the  Conservation  Commission  and  the 
Country  Life  Commission.  It  is  for  the  people  of  the  coun- 
try to  decide  whether  or  not  they  believe  in  the  work  done 
by.  the  Conservation  Commission  and  by  the  Country 
Life  Commission.  *  *  * 

"  If  they  believe  in  improving  our  waterways,  in  preventing 

the  waste  of  soil,  in  preserving  the  forests,  in  thrifty  use  of 

the  mineral  resources  f)f  the  country  for  the  naton  as  a  whole 

rather  than  merelv  for  private  monopolies,  in  working  tor 

the  betteimenl  of  the  condition  of  the   men   and   women 

who  live  on  the  farms,  then  they  will  unstintedly  condemn 

the  action  of  everv  man  who  is  in  any  way  responsible  tor 

inserting  this  provision,  and  will  support  those  members  of  the 

legislative    branch    who    opposed    its    adoption.      1    wou  d 

not  sign  the  bill  at  all  if  I  thought  the  provision  entirely 

eflFective.     But  the  Congress  cannot  prevent  the  1  resident 

from  seeking  advice.      Any  future    President  can  do    as   1 

have  done,  and  ask  disinterested  men  who  desire  to  serve 

the  people  to  give  this  service  free  to  the  people  through 

these  commissions.  *  *  _ 

"My  successor,  the  President-elect,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Senate-  Commission  on  Appropriations,  asked  for  the  con- 
tinuance and  support  of  the  Conservation  Commission. 
The  Conservation  Commission  was  appointed  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  Governors  of  over  forty  States,  and  almost  all 
oi  these  States  have  since  appointed  commissions  to  cc>- 
operate  with  the  National  Commission.  Nearly  all  the 
great  national  organizations  concerned  with  natural  re- 
sources have  been  heartily  cooperating  with    the  commis- 

sio"-  .       ,      A^  1  f       1 

"With  all  the^e  facts  before  il,  the  Congrcv;'.  lia-^  refused 

to  pass  a  law  to  continue  and  provide  for  the  commission  ; 

and  it  now   passes  a   law  with   the   purpose   of   preventing 


',t\V 


.  ^1 


4S6     THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


the  Executive  from  continuing  the  commission  at  all. 
The  Executive,  therefore,  must  now  either  abandon  the  work 
and  reject  the  cooperation  of  the  States,  or  else  must  con- 
tinue the  work  personally  and  through  executive  officers 
whom  he  may  select  for  that  purpose." 

The  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  Spokane,  Washington,  a 
singularly  energetic  and  far-seeing  organization,  itself 
published  the  report  which  Congress  had  thus  discreditably 
refused  to  publish. 

The  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Corporations,  under  Herbert 
Knox  Smith,  formed  an  important  part  of  the  Conservation 
movement  almost  from  the  beginning.  Mr.  Smith  was  a 
member  of  the  Inland  Waterways  Commission  and  of  the 
.\ational  Conservation  Commission  and  his  Bureau  pre- 
pared material  of  importance  for  the  reports  of  both.  The 
investigation  of  standing  timber  in  the  United  States  by 
the  Bureau  of  Corporations  furnished  for  the  first  time 
a  positive  knowledge  of  the  facts.  Over  nine  hundred 
counties  in  timbered  regions  were  covered  by  the  Bureau, 
and  the  work  took  five  years.  The  most  important 
facts  ascertained  were  that  forty  years  ago  three-fourths  of 
the  standing  timber  in  the  United  States  was  publicly 
owned,  while  at  the  date  of  the  report  four-fifths  of  the  timber 
in  the  country  was  in  private  hands.  The  concentration  of 
private  ownership  had  developed  to  such  an  amazing  extent 
that  about  two  hundred  holders  owned  nearly  one-half  of 
all  privately  )wned  timber  in  the  United  States;  and  of 
this  the  three  greatest  holders,  the  Southern  Pacific 
Railway,  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway,  and  the  Weyer- 
haeuser Timber  Company,  held  over  ten  per  cent.  Of  this 
work,  Mr.  Sn  ith  says  : 

"It  was  important,  indeed,  to  know  the  facts  so  that  we 
could  take  proper  action  toward  saving  the  timber  still  left 
to  the  public.  But  of  far  more  importance  was  the  light 
that  this  history  (and  the  history  of  our  other  resources) 
throws  on  the  basic  attitude,  tradition  and  governmental 
beliefs  tjf  tin-  American  pcopli .  The  whole  standpoint  of 
the  people  toward  the  proper  aim  of  government,  toward 
the  relation  of  property  to  the  citizen,  and  the  relation  of 


THE  NATURAL   RESOURCES  OF  THE  NATION'    457 

property  to  the  govcrnnjent,  were  brought  out  first  by  this 
Conservation  work." 

The  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Corporations  as  to  water  power 
was  equally  striking.  In  addition  to  bringing  the  con- 
centration of  water-power  control  first  prominently  to  public 
attention,  through  material  furnislud  for  my  message  in  my 
veto  of  the  James  River  Dam  Bill,  the  work  of  the  Bureau 
showed  that  ten  great  interests  and  their  allies  held  nearly 
sixty  per  cent  of  the  deva'loped  water  power  of  the  United 
States.  Says  Commissioner  Smith :  "  Perhaps  the  most 
important  thing  in  the  whole  work  was  its  clear  demonstra- 
tion of  the  fact  that  the  only  eflFective  place  tf)  control  water 
power  in  the  public  interest  is  at  the  power  sites  ;  that  as  to 
powers  now  owned  by  the  public  it  is  absolutely  essential  that 
the  public  shall  retain  title.  .  .  .  The  only  way  in  which 
the  public  can  get  back  to  itself  the  margin  of  natural  advan- 
tage in  the  water-power  site  is  to  rent  that  site  at  a  rental 
which,  added  to  the  cost  of  power  production  there,  will  make 
the  total  cost  of  water  power  about  the  same  as  fuel  power, 
and  then  let  the  two  sell  at  the  same  price,  i.f.,  the  price  of 
fuel  power." 

Of  the  fight  of  the  water-power  men  for  States  Rights  at 
the  St.  Paul  Conservation  Congress  in  September,  1909, 
Commissioner  Smith  says  : 

"It  was  the  first  open  sign  oftheshift  of  the  special  interests 
to  the  Democratic  party  for  a  logical  political  reason, 
namely,  because  of  the  availability  of  the  States  Rights  idea 
for  the  purposes  of  the  large  corporations.  It  marked  openly 
the  turn  of  the  tide." 

Mr.  Smith  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  Inland  Water- 
ways Commission  the  overshadowing  importance  to  water- 
ways of  their  relation  with  railroad  lines,  the  fact  that  the 
bu'k  of  the  traffic  is  long  distance  traffic,  that  it  cannot  pass 
over  the  whole  distance  by  water,  while  it  can  go  anywhere 
by  railj  and  that  thertiore  the  power  of  the  rail  lines  to  pro- 
rate or  not  to  pro-rate,  with  water  lines  really  deterunnes  the 
practical  vaUu-  uf  a  tivt-r  channel,  'i'lie  coiitrtillinK  value  <>t 
terminals  and  the  fact  that  out  of  fiftyofour  leading  ports,  over 
half  the  active  water  frontage  in  twenty-one  ports  was  con- 


Till-:   NATURAL   RKSOrRCKS  OF   THE   XATIOX      459 

triillrtl  by  llic  railroads,  was  also  brought  to  the  Conitnissioirs 
attention,  and  reports  of  great  vahie  were  prepared  both 
lor  the  Inland  Waterways  Commission  anil  for  the  National 
Conservation  Commission.  In  addition  to  developing  the 
basic  facts  about  the  available  timber  supply,  about  water- 
ways, water  power,  and  iron  ore,  Mr.  Smith  helped  to 
develop  and  drive  into  the  public  conscience  the  idea  that 
the  people  ought  to  retain  title  to  our  natural  resources 
and  handle  them  by  the  leasing  system. 

The  things  accomplished  that  have  been  enumerated 
above  were  of  immediate  consequence  to  the  economic 
well-being  of  our  people.  In  addition  certain  things  were 
done  of  which  the  economic  bearing  was  more  remote,  but 
which  bore  directly  upon  our  welfare,  because  they  add  to 
the  beauty  of  living  and  therefore  to  the  joy  of  life.  Securing 
a  great  artist,  Saint-Gaudens,  to  give  us  the  most  beautiful 
coinage  since  the  decay  of  Hellenistic  Greece  was  one  such 
act.  In  this  case  I  had  power  myself  to  direct  the  Mint  to 
employ  Saint-Gaudens.  The  first,  and  most  beautiful,  of  his 
coins  were  issued  in  thousands  before  Congress  assembled 
or  could  intervene ;  and  a  great  and  permanent  improve- 
ment was  made  in  the  beauty  of  the  coinage.  In  the  same 
way,  on  the  advice  and  suggestion  of  Frank  Millet,  we 
got  some  really  capital  medals  by  sculptors  of  the  first 
rank.  Similarly,  the  new  buildings  in  Washington  were 
erected  and  placed  in  proper  relation  to  one  another,  on 
plans  provided  by  thebestarchitectsandlandscape  architects. 
I  also  appointed  a  Fine  Arts  Council,  an  unpaid  body  of  the 
best  architects,  painters,  and  sculptors  in  the  country,  to 
advise  the  Government  as  to  the  erection  and  decoration  of 
all  new  buildings.  The  "pork-barrtM"  Senators  and  Con- 
gressmen felt  for  this  body  an  instinctive,  and  perhaps  from 
their  standpoint  a  natural,  hostility  ;  and  my  successor  a 
couple  of  months  after  taking  office  revoked  the  appointment 
and  disbanded  the  Council. 

Even  more  important  was  the  taking  of  steps  to  preserve 
from  destruction  beautiful  and  wonderful  wild  creatures 
whose  existence  was  threatened  by  greed  and  wantonness. 
During  the  seven  and  a  half  years  closing  on  March  4,  1909, 


46o     THKODORl-:    ROOSIAKLT      A\    AITOBKXIRAPHY 

more  was  accoinplislicd  for  the  protcctitm  of  wild  life  in  ttir 
United  States  than  during  all  the  previous  years,  excepting 
only  the  creation  of  the  Yellowstcjne  National  Park.  The 
record  includes  the  creation  of  five  National  Parks  —  Crater 
Lak'%  Oregon  ;  Wind  Cave,  South  Dakota  ;  Piatt,  Oklahoma  ; 
Sully  Hill,  North  Dakota,  and  Mesa  Verde,  Colorado; 
four  big  game  refuges  in  Oklahoma,  Arizona,  Montana,  and 
Washington;  fifty-one  bird  reservations;  and  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  for  the  protection  of  wild  life  in  Alaska,  the 
District  of  Columbia,  and  on  National  bird  reserves.  These 
measures  may  be  briefly  enumerated  as  follows  : 

The  enactment  of  the  first  game  laws  for  the  Territory  of 
Alaska  in  1902  and  1908,  resulting  in  the  regulation  of  the 
export  of  heads  and  trophies  of  big  game  and  putting  an 
end  to  the  slaughter  of  deer  for  hides  along  the  southern 
coast  of  the  Territory. 

The  securing  in  1902  of  the  first  appropriation  for  the 
preservation  of  buffalo  and  the  establishment  in  the  Yellow- 
stone National  Park  of  the  first  and  now  the  largest  herd  of 
buffalo  belonging  to  the  Government. 

The  passage  of  the  Act  of  January  24,  1905,  creating  the 
Wichita  Game  Preserves,  the  first  of  the  National  game  pre- 
serves. In  1907,  12,000  acres  of  this  preserve  were  inclosed 
with  a  woven  wire  fence  for  the  reception  of  the  herd 
of  fifteen  buffalo  donated  by  the  New  York  Zoological 
Society. 

The  passage  of  the  Act  of  June  29,  1906,  providing  for  the 
establishment  of  the  Grand  Canon  Game  Preserve  of  Ari- 
zona, now  comprising  1,492,928  acres. 

The  passage  of  the  National  Monuments  Act  of  June  8, 
1906,  under  which  a  number  of  objects  of  scientific  interest 
have  been  preserved  for  all  time.  Among  the  Monuments 
created  are  Muir  Woods,  Pinnacles  National  Monument 
in  California  and  the  Mount  Olympus  National  Monument, 
Washington,  which  form  important  refuges  for  game. 

The  passage  of  the  Act  of  June  30,  1906,  regulating  shooting 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  making  three-fourths  of  the 
environs  of  the  National  Capital  within  the  District  in 
effect  a  National  Refuge. 


THE   NATURAL   RESOURCES  OF   THE  NATION    461 

The  passage  of  tiie  Act  of  May  23,  1908,  providing  for 
the  establishment  of  the  National  Bison  Range  in  Montana. 
This  range  comprises  about  18,000  acres  of  land  formerly 
in  the  Flathead  Indian  Reservation,  on  which  is  no'v  es- 
tablished a  herd  of  eighty  buffalo,  the  nucleus  of  which  was 
donated  to  the  Government  by  the  American  Bison  Society. 

The  issue  of  the  Order  protecting  birds  on  the  Niobrara 
Military  Reservation,  Nebraska,  in  1908,  making  this  entire 
reservation  in  effect  a  bird  reservation. 

The  establishment  by  Executive  Order  between  March  14, 
1903,  and  March  4,  1909,  of  fifty-one  National  Bird  Reserva- 
tions distributed  in  seventeen  States  and  Territories  from 
Porio  Rico  to  Hawaii  and  Alaska.  The  creation  of  these 
reservations  at  once  placed  the  United  States  in  the  front 
rank  in  the  world  work  of  bird  protection.  Among  these  res- 
ervations are  the  celebrated  Pelican  Island  rookery  in  In- 
dian River,  Florida;  The  Mosquito  Inlet  Reservation,  Flor- 
ida, the  northernmost  home  of  the  manatee;  the  extensive 
marshes  bordering  Klamath  and  Malheur  Lakes  in  Oregon, 
formerly  the  scene  of  slaughter  of  ducks  for  market  and 
ruthless  destruction  of  plume  birds  for  the  millinery  trade ; 
the  Tortugas  Key,  Florida,  where,  in  connection  with  the 
Carnegie  Institute,  experiments  have  been  made  on  the 
homing  instinct  of  birds;  and  the  great  bird  colonies  on 
Laysan  and  sister  islets  in  Hawaii,  some  of  the  greatest 
colonies  of  sea  birds  in  the  world. 


CHAin^ER   XII 


THE    BIG    STICK    AND    THE    SQUARE    DEAL 

ONK  of  tin-  vital  questions  with  which  as  President 
I    had    to   deal    was    the    attitude    of    the    Nation 
toward  the  great  corporations.     Men  who  under- 
stand   and    practice    the   deep    underlying   philos- 
ophy of  the  Lincoln  school  of  American  political  thought 
are  necessarily  Hamiltonian  in  their  belief  in  a  strong  and 
;r'cient    National    Government    and   JeflFersonian    in    their 
'.V   ief  in  the  people  as  the  ultimate  authority,  and  in  the 
welfare  of  the  people  as  the  end  of  Ciovernment.     The  men 
who  first  applied  the  extreme  Democratic  theory  in  American 
life    we.c,   like   Jefferson,    ultra    individualists,    for   at   that 
time  what   was  demanded  by  our  people  was   the  largest 
liberty  for  the  individual.     During  the  century   that  had 
elapsed  since  lefferson  became  President  the  need  had  been 
exactly  reversed.     There  had  been  in  our  country  a  not  of 
individualistic  materialism,  under  which  complete  freedom 
for  the  individual       that   ancient  license  which   President 
Wilson  a  century  after  the  term  was  excusable  has  called 
the   "New"    Freedom  —  turned   out   in    practice   to   mean 
perfect  freedom  for  *^"  strong  to  wrong  the  weak.     The 
total  absence  of  go        "   '.ntal  control  had  led  to  a  porten- 
tous growth   in  the  Tinancial   and   industrial   Avorld  both  of 
natural   individuals  and  of  artificial  individuals    -  that  is, 
corporations.     In  no  other  country  in  the  world  had  such 
enormous   fortunes  been   gained.     In   no  other  country  in 
the  world  was  such  power  held  by  the  men  who  had  gained 
these    fortunes;    and    these    men     almost     always     \vorked 
through,  and  b\  means  of,  the  giant  corporations  which  they 
controlled.     The  power  of  the   mighty  industrial  t)verlords 
of  the  country  had  increased  with  giant  strides,  while  the 

40i 


THK    BK;   S'lICK  AND  THK   SQUARK   DKAL      463 


:      'it 


nk'lhods  of  controlling  them,  or  checking  abuses  by  tlicni, 
on  the  part  of  the  people,  through  the  CJovernnient,  remained 
archaic  and  therefore  practically  impotent.  The  courts, 
not  unnaturally,  but  most  regrettably,  and  to  the  grave 
detriment  of  the  people  and  of  their  own  standing,  had  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century  been  on  the  whole  the  agents  of 
reaction,  and  by  conflicting  decisions  which,  however,  in 
their  sum  were  hostile  to  the  interests  of  the  people,  had 
left  both  the  nation  and  the  several  States  well-nigh  impo- 
tent to  deal  with  the  great  business  combinations.  Some- 
times they  forbade  the  .Nation  to  interfere,  because  such 
interference  trespassed  on  the  rights  of  the  States  ;  sometimes 
they  forbade  the  States  to  interfere  (and  )ften  they  were 
wise  in  this),  because  to  do  so  would  trespass  on  the  rights 
of  the  Nation;  but  always,  or  well-nigh  always,  their  action 
was  negative  action  against  the  interests  of  the  people, 
ingeniously  devised  to  limit  their  power  against  wrong, 
instead  of  affirmative  action  giving  to  the  people  power  to 
right  wrong.  They  had  rendered  these  decisions  sometimes 
as  upholders  of  property  rights  against  human  rights,  being 
especially  zealous  in  securing  the  rights  of  the  very  men 
who  were  most  competent  to  take  care  of  themscK^es ;  and 
sometimes  in  the  name  of  liberty,  in  the  name  of  the  so- 
called  "new  freedom,"  in  reality  the  old,  old  "freedom," 
which  secured  to  the  powerful  the  freedom  to  prey  on  the 
poor  and  the  helpless. 

One  of  the  main  troubles  was  the  fact  that  the  men  who 
saw  the  evils  and  who  tried  to  remedy  them  attempted  to 
work  in  two  wholly  different  ways,  and  the  great  majority 
o'  them  in  a  way  that  offered  little  promise  of  real  better- 
ment. They  tried  (by  the  Sherman  law  method)  to  bolster 
up  an  individualism  already  proved  to  be  both  futile  and 
mischievous ;  to  remedy  by  more  individualisin  the  con- 
centration that  was  the  inevitable  result  of  the  already 
existing  individualism.  They  saw  the  evil  done  by  the  big 
combinations,  and  sought  to  remedy  it  bj-  destroying  them 
and  restoring  the  country  to  the  economic  conditions  of  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century\  This  was  a  hopeless 
effort,  and  those  who  went  into  it,  although  they  regarded 


464      THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

themselves  as  radical  prugrossives,  really  represented  a  form 
of  sincere  rural  toryism.  They  confounded  monopolies 
with  big  business  combinations,  and  in  the  effort  to  pro 
hibit  both  alike,  instead  of  where  possible  prohibiting  one 
and  drastically  controlling  the  other,  they  succeeded  merely 
in  preventing  any  effective  control  of  either. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  few  men  recognized  that  corporations 
and  combinations  had  become  indispensable  in  the  business 
world,  that  it  was  follv  to  try  to  prohibit  them,  but  that  it 
was  also  folly  to  leave' them  without  thoroughgoing  control. 
These  men  'realized  that  the  doctrines  of  the  old  laisst'z 
faire  economists,  of  the  believers  in  unlimited  competition, 
unlimited  individualism,  were  in  the  actual  state  of  affairs 
false  and  mischievous.  They  realized  that  the  (Govern- 
ment must  now  interfere  to  protect  labor,  to  subordinate 
the  big  corporation  to  the  public  welfare,  and  to  shackle 
cunning  and  fraud  exactly  as  centuries  before  it  had  inter- 
fered to  shackle  the  physical  force  which  does  wrong  by 
violence.  . 

The   big   reactionaries  of  the  business   world   and   their 
allies   and   instruments   among   politicians   and   newspaper 
editors   took   advantage   of   this   division   of  opinion,   and 
especially  of  the  fact  that  most  of  their  opponents  were  on 
the  wrong  path;  and   fought   to  keep   matters  absolutely 
unchanged.     These  men  demanded  for  themselves  an  im- 
munity from  governmental  control  which,  if  granted,  would 
have  been  as  wicked   and  as  foolish   as  immunity  to  the 
barons  of  the  twelfth  century.     Many  of  them  were  evil 
men.     Many  ot.  ers  were  just  as  good  men  as  were  some 
of   these    same    barons;    but    they    were    as    utterly    un- 
able as  any  medieval  castle-owner  to  understand  what  the 
public  interest  really  was.     There  have  been  aristocracies 
which  have  played  a  great  and  beneficent  part  at  stages 
in  the  growth  of  mankind;  but  we  had  come  to  the  stage 
where  for  our  people  what  was  needed  was  a  real  democ- 
racy ;  and  of  all  forms  of  tyranny  the  least  attractive  and 
the  most  vulgar  is  the  tyranny  of  mere  wealth,  the  tyranny 

'  a   plutocracy. 
When  I  became  President,  the  question  as  to  the  method 


THE  BIG  STICK   AND  THE  SQUARE  DEAL      465 

by  which  the  United  States  CJuvcrnnient  was  to  control 
the  corporatioiis  was  not  yet  important.  The  absolutely 
vital  question  was  whether  the  Government  had  power  to 
control  them  at  all.  This  question  had  not  yet  been  decided 
in  favor  of  the  United  States  Government.  It  was  useless 
to  discuss  methods  of  controlling  big  business  by  the  National 
Government  until  it  was  definitely  settled  that  the  National 
Government  had  the  power  to  control  it.  A  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  had,  with  seeming  definitencss,  settled  that 
the  National  Government  had  not  the  power. 

This  decision  I  caused  to  be  annulled  by  the  court  that 
had  rendered  it;  and  the  present  power  of  the  National 
Government  to  deal  effectively  with  the  trusts  is  due  solely 
to  the  success  of  the  Administration  in  securing  this  reversal 
of  its  former  decision  by  the  Supreme  Court. 

The  Constitution  was  formed  very  largely  because  it 
had  become  imperative  to  give  to  some  central  authority 
the  power  to  regulate  and  control  interstate  commerce. 
At  that  time  when  corporations  were  in  their  infancy  and 
big  combinations  unknown,  there  was  no  i^ifficulty  in  exer- 
cising the  power  granted.  In  theory,  the  right  of  the  Na- 
tion to  exercise  this  power  continued  unquestioned.  But 
changing  conditions  obscured  the  matter  in  the  sight  of  the 
people  as  a  whole;  and  the  conscious  and  the  unconscious 
advocates  of  an  unlimited  and  uncontrollable  capitalism 
gradually  secured  the  whittling  away  of  the  National  power 
to  exercise  this  theoretical  right  of  control  until  it  practi- 
cally vanished.  After  the  Civil  War,  with  the  portentous 
growth  of  industrial  combinations  in  this  country,  came  a 
period  of  reactionary  decisions  by  the  courts  which,  as 
regards  corporations,  culminated  in  what  is  known  as  the 
Knight  case. 

The  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  was  enacted  in  1890  because 
the  formation  of  the  Tobacco  T'-ust  and  the  Sugar  Trust, 
the  only  two  great  trusts  then  in  the  country  (aside  from  the 
Standard  Oil  Trust,  which  was  a  gradual  growth),  had 
awakened  a  popular  demand  for  legislation  to  destroy 
monopoly  and  curb  industrial  combinations.  Thia  demancl 
the  Anti-Trust  Law  was  intended  to  satisfy.     The  Admin- 


466       IIIKODORK   ROOSKA  KI/1"   -  AX   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


istrations  of  Mr.  Harrison  aiul  Mr.  Clrvfland  evidently 
constriud  tliis  law  as  proliihitinjj  siuh  combinations  in  tlir 
futurt-,  not  as  condemning'  those  wliicli  had  been  formed 
prior  to  its  enactment.  In  1895,  however,  the  Sujjar  Trust, 
whose  output  originally  was  about  fifty-five  per  cent  of  all 
sugar  produced  in  the  United  States,  obtained  control  of 
three  other  companies   in    Philadelphia   by  exchanging  its 

stock,  for  theirs,  and  thus 
increased  its  business  until 
it  controlled  ninety-eight 
per  cent  of  the  entire  prod- 
uct. Under  Cleveland,  the 
(K)vernment  brought  prf> 
ceedings  against  the  Sugar 
Trust,  invoking  the  Anti- 
Trust  Law,  to  set  aside  the 
acquisition  of  these  cor- 
porations. The  test  case 
was  on  the  absorption  of 
the  Knight  Company.'  The 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  with  but  one  dissent- 
ing vote,  held  adversely  to 
the  Government.  They  took 
the  ground  that  the  power 
conferred  by  the  Constitu- 
tion to  regulate  and  control 
interstate  commerce  did  not 
extend  to  the  production  or 
manufacture  of  commodities  within  a  State,  and  that  noth- 
ing in  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  prohibited  a  corpo- 
ration from  acquiring  all  the  stock  of  other  corporation. 
through  exchange  of  its  stock  for  theirs,  such  exchange 
not  being  "commerce"  in  the  opinion  of  the  Court,  even 
though  by  such  acquisition  the  corporation  was  enabled 
to  control  the  entire  production  of  a  commodity  that  was  a 


Oscar  Strai'?. 


'  Tlio  case  is  known  in  the  law  books  as  V.  S.  :vf.   K.  C.  Knight,  156  U.S., 
Sept.,  p.  I. 


THE    Bid   Si'iCK   AM)    11  li:   SQIARK   DEAL      4O7 


necessary  of  life.  The  effect  of  liiis  decision  was  not  merely 
the  absolute  nullification  of  the  Anti-'l'nist  Law,  so  far  as 
industrial  corporations  were  concerned,  but  was  also  in 
effect  a  declaration  that,  under  the  Constitution,  the  Na- 
tional Government  could  pass  no  law  really  effective  for 
the  destruction  or  control  of  such  combinations. 

This  decision  left  the  National  (lovernment,  that  is, 
the  people  of  the  Nation,  practically  helpless  to  deal  with 
the  large  combinations  of  modern  business.  The  courts 
in  f)ther  cases  asserted  the  power  of  the  Federal  ( loviriiment 
to  enforce  the  Anti-Trust  Law  so  far  as  transportation  rates 
by  railways  enpaged  in  interstate  commerce  were  concerned. 
But  so  long  as  the  trusts  were  free  to  control  the  produc- 
tion of  commodities  without  interference  from  the  (leneral 
(if)vernmcnt,  they  were  well  content  to  let  the  transporta- 
tion of  commodities  take  care  of  itself  esi^cially  as  the 
law  against  rebates  was  at  that  time  a  dead  letter;  and  the 
Court  by  its  decision  in  the  Knight  case  had  interdicted 
any  interference  by  the  President  or  by  Congress  with  the 
production  of  commodities.  It  was  on  the  authorit\  of 
this  case  that  practically  all  the  big  trusts  in  the  I'liited 
States,  excepting  those  already  mentioned,  were  formed. 
Usually  they  were  organized  as  "holding"  companies,  each 
one  acquiring  control  of  its  constituent  corporations  by 
exchanging  its  stock  for  theirs,  an  operation  wliich  the 
Supreme  Court  had  thus  decided  could  not  be  prohibited, 
controlled,  regulated,  or  e\en  questioned  b\-  the  Federal 
Government. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  our  laws  wlien  I  acceded  to 
the  Presidency,  just  before  my  accession,  a  small  group 
of  financiers  desiring  to  profit  by  the  governmental  impo- 
tence t(»  which  we  had  been  reduced  by  the  Knight  deci- 
sion, had  arranged  to  take  control  of  practically  the  entire 
railway  system  in  the  Northwest  -  pt)ssibl\  as  the  first  step 
toward  controlling  the  entire  railway  system  of  the  country. 
This  control  of  the  Northwestern  railwa\-  s\stenis  was  to 
be  effected  b\  organizing  a  new  ''holding"  eornpan\ ,  and 
exchanging  its  stock  against  the  sti)ck  of  the  various  corpo- 
rations engaged  in  railway  transportation  throughout  that 


468      THEODORK   ROOSEVELT -AX  AUTOBlOCiRAPHY 

vast  territory,  exactly  as  the  Sugar  Trust  had  acquired 
control  of  the  Knight  company  and  other  concerns.  This 
company  was  called  the  Northern  Securities  Company. 
Not  long  after  I  became  President,  on  the  advice  of  the 
Attorney-General,  Mr.  Knox,  and  through  him,  I  ordered 
proceedings  to  be  instituted  for  the  dissolution  of  the  com- 
pany. As  far  as  could  be  told  by  their  utterances  at  the 
time,  among  all  the  great  lawyers  in  the  United  States  Mr. 
Knox  was  the  only  one  who  believed  that  this  action  could 
be  sustained.  The  defense  was  based  expressly  on  the 
ground  that  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Knight  case  had 
explicitly  sanctioned  the  formation  of  such  a  company  as 
the  Northern  Securities  Company.  The  representatives  of 
privilege  intimated,  and  sometimes  asserted  outright,  that 
in  directing  the  action  to  be  brought  I  had  shown  a  lack  of 
respect  for  the  Supreme  Court,  which  had  already  decided 
the  question  at  issue  by  a  vote  of  eight  to  one.  Mr.  Justice 
White,  then  on  the  Court  and  now  Chief  Justice,  set  forth 
the  position  that  the  two  cases  were  in  principle  identical 
with  incontrovertible  logic.  In  giving  the  views  of  the  dis- 
senting minority  on  the  action  I  had  brought,  he  said  : 

"The  parallel  between  the  two  cases  [the  Knight  case  and 
the  Northern  Securities  case]  is  complete.  The  one  cor- 
poration acquired  the  stock  of  other  and  competing  corpo- 
rations in  exchange  for  its  own.  It  was  conceded  for  the 
purposes  of  the  case,  that  in  doing  so  monopoly  had  been 
brought  about  in  the  refining  of  sugar,  that  the  sugar  to 
be  produced  was  likely  to  become  the  subject  of  interstate 
commerce,  and  indeed  that  part  of  it  would  certainly  become 
so.  But  the  power  of  Congress  was  decided  not  to  extend 
to  the  subject,  because  the  ownership  of  the  stock  in  the 
corporations  was  not  itself  commerce."  ' 

Mr.  Justice  White  was  entirely  correct  in  this  statement. 
The  cases  were  parallel.  It  was  necessary  to  reverse  the 
Knight  case  in  the  interests  of  the  people  against  monopoly 
and  privilege  just  as  it  had  been  necessary  to  reverse  the 
Dred  Scott  case  in  the  interest  of  the  people  against  slavery 


'  Niirtliorn  Securities  Company  et 


f.  S.,  156  f.  S.,  Sept.,  pp.  391-; 


THK    tt\C,   STICK   AND  THK   SgrARK   DKAL      469 

and  privilege,  just  as  later  it  became  necessary  Id  reverse 
the  \ew  York  Bakeshop  ease  in  the  interest  of  the  people 
against  that  form  of  monopolistic  privilege  which  put 
human  rights  below  property  rights  where  wage  workers  were 
concerned.  , 

By  a  vote  of  five  to  four  the  Supreme  Court  reversed  its 
decision  in  the  Knight  case,  and  in  the  Northern  Securities 
case  sustained  the  Government.     The  power  to  deal  with 
industrial  monopoly  and  suppress  it  and  to  control  and  reg- 
ulate combinations,  of  which  the  Knight  case  had  deprived 
the  Federal  Government,  was  thus  restored  to  it  by  the 
Northern   Securities   case.     After   this    later    decision   was 
rendered,  suits  were  brought  by  my  direction  against  the 
American  Tobacco  Company  and  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany.    Both  were  adjudged  criminal  conspiracies,  and  their 
dissolution   ordered.     The    Knight   case   was   finally   over- 
thrown.    The  vicious  doctrine  it  embodied   no  longer  rt- 
mains  as  an  obstacle  to  obstruct  the  pathway  of  justice  w' 
it  assails  monopoly.     Messrs.  Knox,  Moody,  and  Bonapari 
who  successively  occupied  the  position  of  Attorney-General 
under  me,  were  profound  lawyers  and  fearless  and  able  men ; 
and  they  completely  established  the  newer  and  more  whole- 
some doctrine  under  which  the  Federal  Government  niay 
now  deal  with  monopolistic  combinations  and  conspiracies. 

The  decisions  rendered  in  these  various  cases  brought 
under  my  direction  constitute  the  entire  authority  upon 
which  any  action  must  rest  that  seeks  through  the  exercise 
of  national  power  to  curb  monopolistic  control.  The 
men  who  organized  and  directed  the  Northern  Securities 
Company  were  also  the  controlling  forces  in  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration, which  has  since  been  prosecuted  under  the  act. 
The  proceedings  against  the  Sugar  Trust  for  corruption 
in  connection  with  the  New  York  Custom  House  are  suf- 
ficiently  interesting   to  be   considered   separately. 

Fronri  the  standpoint  of  giving  complete  control  to  the 
National  Government  over  big  corporations  engaged  \n 
inter-State  business,  it  would  be  impossible  to  over-esti- 
mate the  importance  of  the  Northern  Securities  decision 
and  of  the  decisions  afterwards  rendered  in  line  with  it  in 


470     niionoki".  R(M)si;\  i:i.r    an  mtorkkikaphv 


cciiuu  I  timi  will)  till'  otlur  trusts  \vlii>s«'  ilissoliiliuii  was 
onliTcil.  riif  siHiisN  i.f  thf  NoitlH'iii  Securities  case 
ditiiiitily  tslablislud  tin.'  power  of  the  (loveriiment  to  deal 
with  all  ^reat  corporations.  Without  this  success  the  Na- 
tional (loveriimeiil  must  have  retrained  in  the  inipt)tence  to 
which  it  had  been  reduced  by  the  Knight  decision  as  regards 
the     nost    iinnortanl    of    its    internal    functions.     But    our 

succes'  in  establishing  the 
power  of  the  National  (lov- 
erninent  to  curb  monopolies 
did  not  establish  the  right 
method  of  exercising  that 
power.  We  had  gained  the 
power.  We  had  not  devised 
the  proper  method  of  exer- 
cising it. 

Monopolies  can,  although 
in  rather  cumbrous  fashion, 
be  broken  up  by  law  suits, 
(ireat  business  combina- 
tions, however,  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  made  useful  Instead 
of  noxious  industrial  agen- 
cies merely  by  law  suits,  and 
especially  by  law  suits  sup- 
posed to  be  carried  on  for 
til  ir  destruction  and  not 
for  their  control  and  regu- 
lation. I  at  once  began  to 
urge  upon  Congress  the  need 
of  laws  supplementing  the  Anti-Trust  Law  for  this  law 
struck-  at  all  big  business,  good  and  bad,  alike,  and  as 
the  event  proved  was  very  inetHcient  in  checking  bad 
big  business,  and  yet  was  a  constant  threat  against  decent 
business  men.  I  strongly  urged  the  inauguration  of  a  sys- 
tem of  thoroughgoing  and  drastic  Governmental  regulation 
and  control  over  all  big  business  combinations  engaged  in 
inter-State  industry. 

Here  I  was  able  to  accomplish  only  a  small  part  of  what 


l"oii>  rlj  It  h     I'M  liTA-.iii  I  .1.1  I  IriitiT.v t 

III  mil  ki    K  \  i\   ^Milll 


niK  bk;  stick  and  thl  sgiARK  im;ai,    471 

I  cU'sircd  to  accomplisli.  I  was  opposed  both  by  the  foolish 
radicals  who  desired  to  break  up  all  bi^  buMiiess,  with  the 
impossible  ideal  of  returning  to  mid-nineteenth  century 
industrial  conditions;  and  also  by  the  great  privileged  inter- 
ests themselves,  who  used  these  ordinarii>  but  M)nKtiines 
not  entirely  well-meaning  "stool  pigeon  progressives" 
to  further  their  own  cause.  The  worst  representatives()f 
big  business  encouraged  the  outcry  for  the  total  abolition 
of  big  business,  because  they  knew  that  they  could  not  In- 
hurt  in  this  way,  and  that  such  an  outcr\  distracted  the 
attention  of  the  public  from  the  really  efficient  method  of 
controlling  and  supervising  them,  in  just  but  masterly 
fasliion,  which  was  advocated  by  the  sane  representatives 
of  reform.  However,  vc  suxeeded  in  making  a  good 
beginning  by   securing  passage  ol    a   law   creatiijg   tin- 

Department  of  Commer  and  Labor,  and  witli  it  the 
erection  of  the  Bureau  of  Corpora'ions.  The  frst  head  of 
the  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  wa  Mr.  Cortel- 
you,  later  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Mr.  Oscar  Straus.  The  first  head  of  the  Bureau  of  Cor- 
porations was  Mr.  (lartield,  who  was  succeeded  by  Mr. 
Herbert  Knox  Smith.  No  four  better  public  servants  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  people  as  a  whole  could  have  been 
found. 

The  Standard  Oil  Company  took  the  lead  in  (.pposing 
all  this  legislation.  This  was  natural,  for  it  had  been  the 
worst  offender  in  the  amassing  of  enormous  fortunes  by 
improper  methods  of  all  kinds,  at  the  expense  of  business 
rivals  and  of  the  public,  including  the  corruption  of  public 
servants.  If  any  man  thinks  this  condemnation  extreme, 
I  refer  him  to  the  language  officially  used  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  nation  in  its  decision  against  the  Standard 
Oil  Company.  Through  their  counsel,  and  by  direct  tele- 
grams and  letters  to  Senators  and  Congressmen  I'.im  various 
heads  of  the  Standard  Oil  organization,  they  did  their  best 
to  kill  the  bill  providing  for  the  Bureau  of  Corporations. 
I  got  hold  of  one  oi  lv\o  of  these  telegrams  and  letters,  how- 
ever, and  promptb  published  them  :  and,  as  generall)  hap- 
pens in  such  a  case,  the  men  who  were  all-powerful  as  long 


472      THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


as  they  could  work  in  secret  and  behind  closed  doors  became 
powerless  as  soon  as  they  were  forced  into  the  open.  The 
bill  went  through  without  further  difficulty. 

The  true  way  of  dealing  with  monopoly  is  to  prevent  it 
by  administrative  action  before  it  grows  so  powerful  that 
even  when  courts  condemn  it  they  shrink  from  destroying 
it.  The  Supreme  Court  in  the  Tobacco  and  Standard  Oil 
cases,  for  instance,  used  very  vigorous  language  in  con- 
demning these  trusts  ;  but  the  net  result  of  the  decision  was  of 
positive  advantage  to  the  wrongdoers,  and  this  has  tended 
to  bring  the  whole  body  of  our  law  into  disrepute  in  quarters 
where  it  is  of  the  very  highest  importance  that  the  law  be 
held  in  respect  and  even  in  revx-rence.  My  effort  was  to 
secure  the  creation  of  a  P'cderal  Commission  which  should 
neither  excuse  nor  tolerate  monopoly,  but  prevent  it  when 
possible  and  uproot  it  when  discovered ;  and  which  should 
in  addition  effectively  control  and  regulate  all  big  combina- 
tions, and  should  give  honest  business  certainty  as  to  what 
the  law  was  and  security  as  long  as  the  law  was  obeyed. 
Such  a  Commission  would  furnish  a  steady  expert  control,  a 
control  adapted  to  the  problem ;  and  dissolution  is  neither 
control  nor  regulation,  but  is  purely  negative ;  and  negative 
remedies  are  of  little  permanent  avail.  Such  a  Commission 
would  have  complete  power  to  examine  into  every  big  cor- 
poration engaged  or  proposing  to  engage  in  business  between 
the  States.  It  would  have  the  power  to  discriminate  sharply 
between  corporations  that  are  doing  well  and  those  that  are 
doing  ill ;  and  the  distinction  between  those  who  do  well  and 
those  who  do  ill  would  be  defined  in  terms  so  clear  and  unmis- 
takable that  no  one  could  misapprehend  them.  Where  a 
company  is  found  seeking  its  profits  through  serving  the 
community  by  stimulating  production,  lowering  prices  or 
improving  service,  while  scrupulously  respecting  the  rights 
of  others  (including  its  rivals,  its  employees,  its  customers, 
and  the  general  public),  and  strictly  obeying  the  law,  then 
no  matter  how  large  its  capital,  or  how  great  the  volume  of 
its  business  it  would  be  encouraged  to  still  more  abundant 
production,  or  better  service,  by  the  fullest  piutccliun  that 
the  Government  could  afford  it.     On  the  other  hand,  if  a 


THE   BIG  STICK  AND  THE   SQi  ARE   DEAL      473 

corporation  were  found  seeking  profit  through  injury  or 
oppression  of  the  community,  by  restricting  production 
through  trick  or  device,  by  plot  or  conspiracy  against  com- 
petitors, or  by  oppression  of  wage-workers,  and  then  extort- 
ing high  prices  for  the  commodity  it  had  made  artificially 
scarce,  it  would  be  prevented  from  organizing  if  its  nefarious 
purpose  could  be  discovered  in  time,  or  pursued  and  sup- 
pressed by  all  the  power  of  Government  whenever  found  in 
actual  operation.  Such  a  commission,  with  the  power  I 
advocate,  would  put  a  stop  to  abuses  of  big  corporations  and 
small  corporations  alike;  it  would  draw  the  line  on  conduct 
and  not  on  size;  it  would  destroy  monopoly,  and  make  the 
biggest  business  man  in  the  country  conform  squarely  to 
the  principles  laid  down  by  the  American  people,  while  at 
the  same  time  giving  fair  play  to  the  little  manandcertainty 
of  knowledge  as  to  what  was  wrong  and  what  was  right  both 
to  big  man  and  little  man. 

Although  under  the  decision  of  the  courts  the  National 
Government  had  power  over  the  railways,  I  found,  when  I 
became  President,  that  this  power  was  either  not  exercised 
at  all  or  exercised  with  utter  inefficiency.  The  law  against 
rebates  was  a  dead  letter.  All  the  unscrupulous  railway 
men  had  been  allowed  to  violate  it  with  impunity;  and 
because  of  this,  as  was  inevitable,  the  scrupulous  and 
decent  railway  men  had  been  forced  to  violate  it  themselves, 
under  penalty  of  being  beaten  by  their  less  scrupulous 
rivals.  It  was  not  the  fault  of  these  decent  railway  men. 
It  was  the  fault  of  the  (Government. 

Thanks  to  a  first-class  railway  man,  Paul  Morton  of  the 
Santa  Fe,  son  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  Secretary  of  Agriculture, 
1  was  able  completely  to  stop  the  practice.  Mr.  Mortcjn 
volunteered  to  aid  the  Government  in  abolishing  rebates. 
He  frankly  stated  that  he,  like  every  one  else,  had  been  guilty 
in  the  matter;  but  he  insisted  that  he  uttered  the  senti- 
ments of  the  decent  railway  men  of  the  country  when  he 
said  that  he  hoped  the  practice  would  be  stopped,  and  that 
if  I  would  really  stop  il,  and  not  nieret)  make  believe  to  stop 
it,  he  would  give  the  te>;timony  which  would  put  into  tin- 
hands   of   the  Cjovernment   the   power   to   put   a   complete 


474      THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

check  to  the  practice.  Accordingly  he  testified,  and  on  the 
information  which  he  gave  us  we  were  able  to  take  such 
action  through  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission 
and  the  Department  of  Justice,  s'«pplemcnted  by  the  neces- 
sary additional  legislation,  that  the  evil  was  absolutely 
eradicated.  He  thus  rendered,  of  his  own  accord,  at  his 
own  personal  risk,  and  from  purely  disinterested  motives, 
an  invaluable  service  to  the  people,  a  service  which  no  other 
man  who  was  able  to  render  was  willing  to  render.  As  an 
immediate  sequel,  the  world-old  alliance  between  Blifil 
and  Black  George  was  immediately  revived  against  Paul 
Morton.  In  giving  rebates  he  had  done  only  what  every 
honest  railway  man  in  the  country  had  been  obliged  to  do 
because  of  the  failure  of  the  Government  to  enforce  the 
prohibition  as  regards  dishonest  railway  men.  But  unlike 
his  fellows  he  had  then  shown  the  courage  and  sense  of 
obligation  to  the  public  which  made  him  come  forward  and 
without  evasion  or  concealment  state  what  he  had  done, 
in  order  that  we  might  successfully  put  an  end  to  the  prac- 
tice ;  and  put  an  end  to  the  practice  we  did,  and  we  did  it 
because  of  the  courage  and  patriotism  he  had  shown.  The 
unscrupulous  railway  men,  whose  dishonest  practices  were 
thereby  put  a  stop  to,  and  the  unscrupulous  demagogues 
who  were  either  under  the  influence  of  these  men  or  desirous 
of  gaining  credit  with  thoughtless  and  ignorant  people  no 
matter  who  was  hurt,  joined  in  vindictive  clamor  against 
Mr.  Morton.  They  actually  wished  me  to  prosecute  him, 
although  such  prosecution  would  have  been  a  piece  of  unpar- 
donable ingratitude  and  treache-y  on  die  part  of  the  public 
toward  him  -  for  I  was  merely  acting  as  the  steward  of 
the  public  in  this  matter.  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  stood 
by  him ;  and  later  he  served  under  me  as  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  and  a  capital  Secretary  he  made  too. 

We  not  only  secured  the  stopping  of  rebates,  but  in  the 
Hepburn  Rate  Bill  we  were  able  to  put  through  a  measure 
which  gave  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission  for  the 
first  time  real  control  over  the  railways.  There  were  two 
or  three  amusing  features  in  the  cwitcs*  over  this  bill. 
All  of  the  great  business  interests  which  objected  to  Govern- 


,   TflE   BIG   STICK   AND  THK   SQUARK   DEAL      475 

mental  ccntr-.l  banJcJ  to  tight  it,  aiul  they  were  helped  b)' 
the    honest    men    of    ultra-conseivativ.-    type    who    alw-ays 
dread  change,  whether  good  or  had.     Wc  finally  forced  it 
through  the  House.     In  the  Senate  it  was  referred  to  a  com- 
mittee in  which  the  Republican  majority  was  under  the  con- 
trol of  Senator  Aldrich,  who  took  the  lead  m  opposmg  the 
bill      There  was  one  Republican  on  the  committee,  however, 
whom  Senator  Aldrich  could  not  control     -  Senator  Dolliver, 
of    low.      The   leading    Democrat   on    the   committee   was 
Senator  Tillman,  of  South  Carolina,  with  whom  I  was  not 
on  goo('  terms,  because  1  had  been  obliged  to  cancel  an  invi- 
tation    )  him  to  dine  at  the  White  House  on  account  ot  ins 
having  made  a  personal  assault  in  the  Senate  Chamber  on 
his  colleague  from  South  Carolina  ;  and  later  I  had  to  take 
action  against  him  on  account  of  his  conduct  in  connection 
with    certain  land  matters.     Senator  Tillman   favored   the 
bill      The    Republican    majority    in    the   committ'-e    under 
Senator   Aldrich,   when   they   acted   adversely  on    tht     nil, 
turned   it   over   to   Senator  Tillman,   thereby   making   lum 
its  sponsor.     The  object  was  to  create  what  it  was  hoped 
would  be  an  impossible  situation  in  view  of  the  relations 
between  Senator  Tillman  and  myself.     I  regarded  the  action 
as  simply  childish.     It  was  a  curious  instance  of  how  able 
and  astute  men  sometimes  commit  blunders  because  ot  sheer 
inability   to   understand   intensity   of   disinterested   motive 
in  others.     I  did  not  care  a  rap  about  Mr.  Tillman  s  getting 
credit  for  the  bill,  or  having  charge  of  it.     I  was  delighted 
to  go  with  him  or  with  any  one  else  just  so  .--g  as  he  was 
traveling  mv  wav       and  no  longer.  _  •  •  i 

There  was  another  amusing  incident  in  connection  with 
the  passage  of  the  bill.  All  the  wise  friends  of  the  effort  to 
secure  CK)vernmental  control  of  corporations  knovv  that  this 
Government  control  must  be  exercised  through  administra- 
tive and  not  judicial  officers  Tf  it  is  to  be  cflFective.  Every- 
thing possible  should  be  done  to  minimize  the  chance  ot 
appealing  from  the  decisions  of  the  administrative  officer 
to  the  courts.  But  it  is  not  possible  Constitutionally,  and 
probably  would  not  be  desirable  anyhow  completely  to 
abolish   the  appeal.     Unwise  zealots   wished  to  make  the 


47^>      THEODORE   ROOSEVELT      AX   M'TOBIOGRAPnY 


ttTort  U)tally  to  aholisli  the  appeal  in  coiiiii-ction  with  the 
Mcpburn  Bill.  Rtprcscntalivcs  of  the  special  interests 
wished  to  extend  the  appeal  to  include  what  it  ought  not 
to  include.  Between  stood  a  number  of  men  whose  votes 
would  mean  the  passage  of,  or  the  failure  to  pass,  the  bill, 
and  who  were  not  inclined  towards  either  side.  Three  or 
four  substantially  identical  amendments  were  proposed, 
and  we  then  suddenly  found  ourselves  fa<e  to  face  with  an 

absurd  situation.  The  good 
men  who  were  willing  to  go 
with  us  but  had  conserva- 
tive misgivings  about  the 
ultra-radicals  would  not  ac- 
cept a  good  amendment  if 
one  of  the  latter  proposed 
it ;  and  the  radicals  would 
not  accept  their  own  amend- 
ment if  one  of  the  conser- 
vatives proposed  iu  Each 
side  got  so  wrought  up  as 
to  be  utterly  unable  to  get 
matters  into  proper  perspec- 
tive ;  each  prepared  to  stand 
on  unimportant  trifles;  each 
announced  with  hysterical 
emphasis  —  the  reformeis 
just  as  hysterically  as  the 
reactionaries  —  that  the  de- 
cision as  regards  each  un- 
important trifle  determined  the  v/orth  or  worthlessness  of  the 
measure.  (Gradually  we  secured  a  measurable  return  to  sane 
appreciation  of  the  essentials.  Finally  both  sides  reluctantly 
agreed  to  accept  tlie  so-called  Allison  amendment  which  did 
not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  work  any  change  in  the  bill  at  all. 
The  amendment  was  drawn  by  Attorney-General  Moody 
after  consultation  with  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Com- 
mission, and  was  forwarded  by  me  to  Senator  DoUiver; 
it  was  accepted,  and  the  bill  became  law. 
Thanks  to  this  law  and  to  the  way  in  which  the  Inter- 


Wll-LIAM     H      MiHMiv. 


THE   BIG   STICK   AND  THE   SQUARE   DEAL      477 


State  Commerce  Commission  was  backed  by  the  Admin- 
istration, the  Commission,  under  men  like  Prouty,  Lane, 
and  Clark,  became  a  most  powerful  force  for  good.  Some 
of  the  good  that  we  had  accomplished  was  undone  after  the 
close  of  my  Administration  by  the  unfortunate  law  creating 
a  Commerce  Court ;  but  the  major  part  of  the  immense 
advance  we  had  made  remained.  There  was  one  point  on 
which  I  insisted,  and  upon  which  it  is  necessary  always  to 
insist.  The  Commission  cannot  do  permanent  good  unless 
it  does  justice  to  the  corporations  precisely  as  it  exacts 
justice  from  them.  The  public,  the  sliippers,  the  stock  and 
(bondholders,  and  the  employees,  all  have  their  rights,  and 
none  should  be  allowed  unfair  privileges  at  the  expense  of 
the  others.  Stock  watering,  and  swindling  of  any  kind 
should  of  course  not  only  be  stopped  but  punished.  When, 
however,  a  road  is  managed  fairly  and  honestly,  and  when 
it  renders  a  real  and  needed  service,  then  the  (lovernment 
must  see  that  it  is  not  so  burdened  as  to  make  it  imposs-ble 
to  run  it  at  a  profit.  There  is  much  wise  legislation  neces- 
sary for  the  safety  of  the  public,  or  —  like  workmen's 
compensation  —  necessary  to  the  well-being  of  the  employee, 
which  nevertheless  imposes  such  a  burden  on  the  road  that 
the  burden  must  be  distributed  between  the  general  public 
and  the  corporation,  ov  there  will  be  no  dividends.  In 
such  a  case  it  may  be  the  highest  duty  of  the  commission 
to  raise  rates ;  and  the  commission,  when  satisfied  that  the 
necessity  exists,  in  order  to  do  justice  tf)  the  owners  of  the 
road,  should  no  more  hesitate  to  raise  rates,  than  under 
other  circumstances   to  lower  them. 

So  much  for  the  "big  stick"  in  dealing  with  the  corporations 
when  they  went  wrong.     Now  for  a  sample  of  the  square  deal. 

In  the  fall  of  1907  there  were  severe  business  disturbances 
and  financial  stringency,  culminating  'n  a  panicvvhich  arose 
in  New  York  and  spread  over  the  country.  The  damage 
actually  done  was  great,  and  the  damage  threatened  was 
incalculable.  Thanks  largely  to  the  action  of  the  Cov- 
ernnient,  the  panic  was  stopped  before,  instead  of  being 
merely  a  serious  business  check,  it  bec'ine  a  1  rightful  and 
Nation-wide  calamitx ,  a  disaster  fraught  with  untold  misery 


478      THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBKXJRAPHY 

and  woe  to  all  our  people.     For  several  days  the  Nation 
trembled  on  the  brink  of  such  a  calamity,  of  such  a  disaster. 
During  these  days  both  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
and  I  personally  were  in  hourly  communication  with  New 
York,  following  every  change  in  the  situation,  and  trying 
to    anticipate    every    development.     It    was    the    obvious 
duty  of  the  Administration  to  take  every  step  possible  to 
prevent   appalling   disaster  by  checking  the  spread  of  the 
panic  before  it  grew  so  that  nothing  could  check  it.     And 
events  moved  with  such  speed  that  it  was  necessary  to  decide 
and  to  act  on  t+ie  instant,  as  each  succi  ssive  crisis  arose,  if 
the  decision  and  action  were  to  accomplish  anything.     The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  took  various  actions,  some  on  his 
own  initiative,  some  by  my  direction.     Late  one  evening 
I  was  informed  that  two  representatives  of  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration wished  to  see  me  early  the  following  morning,  the 
precise  object  not  being  named.     Xext  morning,  while  at 
breakfast,  I  was  informed  that  Messrs.  Frick  and  C^ary  were 
waiting  at  the  office.     I    at   once  went  over,  and,  ;>s    the 
Attorney-General,    Mr.    Bonaparte,    had    not    yet    arrived 
from  Baltimore,  where  he  had  been   passing  the  night,  I 
sent  a  message  asking  the  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Root,  who 
was  also  a  lawyer,  to  join  us,  which  he  did.     Before  the  close 
of  the  interview  and  in  the  presence  of  the  three  gentlemen 
named,  I  dictated  a  note  to  Mr.  Bonaparte,  setting  forth 
exactly  what  Messrs.   Frick  and  Gary  had  proposed,  and 
exactly  what  I  had  answered   -  so  that  there  might  be  no 
possibility  of  misunderstanding.     This  note  was  published 
in  a  Senate  Document  while  I  was  still  President.     It  runs 
as  follows : 

The  White  House,  Washington, 

November  4,  if>07. 
My  dear  Mr.  Attorney-General : 

Judge  F.  H.  Ciary  and  Mr.  H.  C.  Frick,  on  behalf  of  the 
Steel  Corporation,  have  just  called  upon  me.  They  state 
that  there  i^  .-j  certain  business  tirni  (the  name  of  which  I 
have  not  been  told,  but  which  is  of  real  importance  in  New 
York  business  circles),  which  will  undoubtedly  fail  this  week 
if  help  is  not  given,     .\mong  its  assets  are  a  majority  of  the 


THE   BIG   STICK   AND    IIIK   SQIARE   DEAL      479 

securities  of  the  Tennessee  Coal  Company.  Application 
has  been  urgently  made  to  the  Steel  Corporation  to  purchase 
this  stock  as  the  only  means  of  avoiding  a  failure.  Judge 
Gary  and  Mr.  Frick  informed  me  that  as  a  mere  business 
transaction  they  do  not  care  to  purchase  the  stock;  that 
under  ordinary  circumstances  they  would  not  consider 
purchasing  the  stock,  because  but  little  benefit  will  come 
to  the  Steel  Corporation  from  the  purchase ;  that  they  are 
aware  that  the  purchase  will  be  used  as  a  handle  for  attack 
upon  them  on  the  ground  that  they  are  striving  to  secure  a 
monopoly  of  the  business  and  prevent  competition  — •  not 
that  this  would  represent  what  could  honestly  be  said,  but 
what   might   recklessly   and   untruthfully   be  said. 

They  further  informed  me  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
policy  of  the  company  has  been  to  decline  to  acquire  more 
than  sixty  per  cent  of  the  steel  properties,  and  that  this 
purpose  has  been  persevered  in  for  several  years  past,  with 
the  object  of  preventing  these  accusations,  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  their  proportion  of  steel  properties  has  slightly 
decreased,  so  that  it  is  below  this  sixty  per  cent,  and  the 
acquisition  of  the  property  in  question  will  not  raise  it  above 
sixty  per  cent.  But  they  feel  that  it  is  immensely  to  their 
interest,  as  to  the  interest  of  every  responsible  business 
man,  to  try  to  prevent  a  panic  and  general  industrial  smash- 
up  at  this  time,  and  that  they  are  willing  to  go  into  this 
transaction,  which  they  would  not  otherwise  go  into,  because 
it  seems  the  opinion  of  those  best  fitted  to  express  judgment 
in  New  York  that  it  will  be  an  important  factor  in  preventing 
a  break  that  might  be  ruinous ;  and  that  this  has  been  urged 
upon  them  by  the  combination  of  the  most  responsible 
bankers  in  New  York  who  are  now  thus  engaged  in  endeav- 
oring to  save  the  situation.  But  they  asserted  that  they 
did  not  wish  to  do  this  if  1  stated  that  it  ought  not  to  be 
done.  I  answered  that,  while  of  course  I  could  not  advise 
them  to  take  the  action  proposed,  I  felt  it  no  public  duty 
of  mine  to  interpose  any  objections. 

Sincerely  yours, 
(Signed)  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Hon.  Chari.es  J.  Bonaparte, 
Attorney-General. 


4SO      TllKODORK    ROOSIA  KIT  -  AN   AUTOBKXIRAPHY 

Mr.  lioiiaparti-  irci-ivid  this  iK)tc  in  about  an  liour, 
aiul  that  s;iinr  mnniin^'  hi'  (.aiiir  dvit,  aiknovvlfdgcd  its 
receipt,  ami  saiii  that  m\  aiiswii  was  the  only  proper 
answer  that  could  Itave  been  made,  having  regard  both 
to  the  law  and  to  the  needs  of  the  situation.  He  stated 
that  the  legal  situation  had  been  in  no  way  changed, 
and  that  no  sufficient  ground  existed  for  prosecution  of 
the  Steel  Corporation.  But  I  acted  purely  on  my  own 
initiative,    and    the    responsibility    for    the    act   was    solely 

mine. 

1  was  intimately  acquainted  with  the  situation  in  New 
York.  The  word  "panic"  means  fear,  unreasoning  fear; 
to  stop  a  panic  it  is  necessary  to  restore  confidence;  and 
at  the  moment  the  so-called  Morgan  interests  were  the 
only  interests  which  retained  a  full  hold  on  the  confidence 
of  the  people  of  .New  York  —  not  only  the  business 
people,  but  the  immense  mass  of  men  and  women  who 
owned  small  investments  or  had  small  savings  in  the 
bank  and  trust  companies.  Mr.  Morgan  and  his  asso- 
ciates were  of  course  fighting  hard  to  prevent  the  loss  of 
confidence  and  the  panic  distrust  from  increasing  to  such 
a  degree  as  to  bring  any  other  big  financial  institutions 
dmvn ;  for  this  would  probably  have  been  followed  by  a 
generi'l,  and  very  likely  a  worldwide,  crash.  The  Knicker- 
bocker Trust  Company  had  already  failed,  and  runs  had 
begun  on,  or  were  threatened  as  regards,  two  other  big 
trust  companies.  These  companies  were  now  on  the  fight- 
ing line,  and  it  was  to  the  interest _  of  everybody  to 
strengthen  them,  in  order  that  the  situation  might  be 
saved.  It  was  a  matter  of  general  knowledge  and  belief 
that  they,  or  the  individuals  prominent  in  them,  held 
the  securities  of  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company, 
which  securities  had  no  market  value,  and  were  useless  as  a 
source  of  strength  in  the  emergency.  The  Steel  Corporation 
securities,  on  the  contrary,  were  immediately  marketable, 
their  great  value  being  known  and  admitted  all  over  the 
world  —  as  the  event  showed.  The  proposal  of  Messrs. 
Frick  and  Gary  was  that  the  Steel  Corporation  should 
at  once  acquire  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company,  and 


THF'.   BIG   SIICK   AND  THE   SOIARK   DFvXL      4S1 

tlu'ivlij  substitute,  ainoiij?  the  assets  of  ilu-  tliiratciutl 
institutions  (which,  by  the  way,  they  ditl  not  name  to  mc), 
securities  of  great  and  iiniutiliale  value  for  securities  which 
at  the  moment  were  of  no  value.  It  was  necessary  for 
me  to  decide  on  the  instant,  before  the  Stock  P]xchange 
opened,  for  the  situation  in  New  ^'ork  was  such  that  any 
hour  might  be  vital,  and 
failure  to  act  for  e\eii  an 
hour  might  make  all  subse- 
quent effort  to  act  utterly 
useless.  l*'rom  the  best  in- 
lormatioii  at  my  disposal,  I 
belie\ed  (what  was  actually 
the  fact)  that  the  addition 
of  the  Tennessee  Coal  and 
Iron  property  would  only  in- 
crease the  proportion  of  the 
Stee'  Company's  holdings 
by  about  four  per  cent,  mak- 
ing them  about  sixty-two  per 
cent  instead  of  about  iifty- 
eight  per  cent  of  the  total 
value  in  the  country;  an 
addition  '  liich,  by  itself,  in 
my  judgment  (concurred  in, 
not  only  by  the  .\ttorney- 
(leneral  but  by  every  com- 
petent lawyer),  worked  no 
change  in  the  'ega!  status 
of  the  Steel  corporation.  The  diminution  in  the  percentage 
of  holdings,  and  production,  has  gone  on  steadily,  and  the 
percentage  is  now  about  ten  per  cent  less  i'  an  it  was  ten 
years  ago. 

The  action  was  emphatically  for  the  general  good.  It 
offered  the  only  chance  for  arresting  the  panic,  and  it  did 
arrest  the  panic.  I  answered  Messrs.  Frick  and  Gary,  as 
set  forth  in  the  letter  quoted  above,  to  the  effect  that  I  did 
not_  dcemit  my  duty  lo  interfere,  that  is,  to  forbid  the 
action  which  mo;?  than  anything  else  in  actual  fact  saved 


ClIAKLKS  J     BoNAPAkTK. 


4S2      THKOnORK   R(M)SK\Ki;i    -AN    AL  lOBUKIRAPllY 

the  siuialu.M.  Tin-  result  justified  my  judgment.  The 
panic  was  stopped,  public  confidence  in  the  solvency  of 
the  threatened  institution  being  at  once  restored. 

Business  was  vitally  helped  by  what  I  did.     The  benefit 
was  not  only  for  the  moment.     It  was  permanent.     Par- 
ticularly was  this  the  case  in  the  South.     Three  or  four 
years  afterwards  I  visited  Birmingham.     Every  man  I  met 
without  exception,  who  was  competent  to  testify,  intormed 
,ne  voluntarily  that  the  results  of  the  acti.)n  taken  had  been 
of   the   utmost   benefit   to    Birmingham,   and   therefore   to 
Alabama,  the  industry  having  profited  to  an  extraordinary 
decree,  not  only  from  the  standpoint  of  the  business    but 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  community  at  large  and  of  the 
wage-workers,   by   the   change   in   ovynership.      The   results 
of  the  action  I  took  were  beneficial  from  every  standpoint, 
and  the  action  itself,  at  the  time  when  it  was  taken,  was 
vitally  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the  people  of  the  L  niteU 

1  would  have  been  derelict  in  my  duty,  I  would  have 
shown  myself  a  timid  and  unworthy  public  servant,  if  in  that 
cUraordinary  crisis  I  had  not  acted  precisely  as  1  did  act. 
In  every  such  crisis  the  temptation  to  indecision,  to  non- 
action, is  great,  for  excuses  can  always  be  found  for  non- 
action, and  action  means  risk  and  the  certainty  of  blame  to 
the  man  who  acts.  But  if  the  man  is  worth  his  salt 
he  will  do  his  duty,  he  will  give  the  people  the  benefit 
of  the  doubt,  and  act  in  any  way  which  their  interests 
demand  and  which  is  not  affirmatively  prohibited  by  law, 
unheeding  the  likelihood  that  he  himself,  when  the  crisis 
is  over  and   the  danger  past,  will  be  assailed  for  what  he 

has  done.  ,  , 

Every  step  I  took  in  this  matter  was  open  as  the  tlay,  ana 
was  known  in  detail  at  the  moment  to  all  people.  1  he 
press  contained  full  accounts  of  the  visit  to  me  of  Messrs. 
Frick  and  Gary,  and  heralded  widely  and  with  acclamation 
the  results  of  that  visit.  At  the  time  the  relief  and  rejoiang 
over  what  had  been  done  were  well-nigh  universal.  1  he 
danger  was  too  imminent  and  too  appalling  for  men  to  be 
willin<»  to  condemn  those  who  were  successful  in  sailing  them 


THE   BIG   STICK  AM)  THK   SQLARK   DEAL      483 

from  it.  But  I  fully  understood  and  expected  that  when 
there  was  no  hmger  danger,  when  the  fear  had  been  for- 
gott'.-n,  attack  would  be  made  upon  me ;  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  after  a  year  had  elapsed  the  attack  was  begun,  and  has 
continued  at  intervals  ever  since;  my  ordinary  assailant 
being  some  politician  of  rather  cheap  type. 

If  I  were  on  a  sail-boat,  I  should  not  ordinarily  meddle 
with  any  of  the  gear;  but  if  a  sudden  squall  struck  us,  and 
the  main  sheet  jammed,  so  that  the  boat  threatened  to 
capsize,  I  would  unhesitatingly  cut  the  main  sheet,  even 
though  I  were  sure  that  the  owner,  no  matter  how  grateful 
to  me  at  the  moment  for  having  saved  his  life,  would  a 
few  weeks  later,  when  he  had  forgotten  his  danger  and  his 
fear,  decide  to  sue  me  for  the  value  of  the  cut  rope.  But 
I  would  feel  a  hearty  contempt  for  the  owner  who  so  acted. 

There  were  many  other  things  that  we  did  in  connection 
with  corporations.  One  of  the  most  important  was  the  pas- 
sage of  the  meat  inspection  law  because  of  scandalous  abuses 
shown  to  exist  in  the  great  packing-houses  in  Chicago  and 
elsewhere.  There  was  a  curious  result  of  this  law,  similar 
to  what  occurred  in  connection  with  the  law  providing  for 
effective  railway  regulation.  The  big  beef  men  bitterly 
opposed  the  law;  just  as  the  big  railwav  men  opposed  the 
Hepburn  Act.  Vet  three  or  four  years  after  these  laws  had 
been  put  on  the  statute  books  every  honest  man  both  in  the 
beef  business  and  the  railwaj  business  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  they  worked  good  and  not  harm  to  the  decent 
business  concerns.  They  hurt  only  tiiose  who  were  not 
acting  as  they  should  have  acted.  'The  law  providing  for 
the  inspection  of  p.  king-houses,  and  the  Pure  Food  and 
Drugs  Act,  were  alsc  extremely  important  ;  and  the  way  in 
which  they  were  administered  was  even  more  important. 
It  would  be  hard  to  overstate  the  value  of  the  service  rend- 
ered in  all  these  cases  by  such  cabinet  officers  as  Moody  and 
Bonaparte,  and  their  outside  assistants  of  the  stamp  of 
Frank   Kellogg. 

It  would  be  useless  to  enumerate  all  llic  suits  \\r  bronirht. 
Some  of  them  1  have  already  touched  upon.  Others,  such 
as    the    suits    against    the    Harriiuan  railway  corporations, 


4)^4      TIIKODORK   ROOSIA  KLT  -  AN   AUTOBUX'.RAI'HY 

wlncl>  wcTc  successful,  and  which  had  been  rendered  abso 
lutelv  necessary  bv  the  ^rrossly  improper  actum  of  the  cor- 
p.,raiions  concerned,  ofTered  no  special  p...nts  of  m  crest. 
The  Su^ar  Trust  proceedings,  lu.wever,  may  be  mentu.ned 
as  shnvvinj:  just  the  kind  of  thing  that  was  done  and  the  kmd 
.,f  obstacle  encountered   and  overcome   in   prosecu-ons  of 

this  character.  t..-ii-        i      u    i,- 

It  was  on  the  advice  of  my  secretary,  William  Loeb   Jr., 
afterward  head  of  the  New  York  Custom-House,  that  the 
action  was  taken  which  started  the  uncovering  o.  the  frauds 
perpetrated   by   the   Sugar  Trust    and   other  compames   in 
connection   with   the  importing  of  sugar.     Loeb  had  fr, 
time  to  tin.e  told  me  that  he  was  sure  that  there  was  fraud 
i„  connectic.n  with    the  importations   by   the   Sugar    I  rust 
through  the  New  York  Custom-House.     I'lnally,  some  time 
toward  'he  end  of  l^,  he  informed  me  that  Richaru     arr 
a  sampler  at  the  New  York  Appraisers   Stores  (whose  duties 
took  him   almost   continually  on   the  docks   in  connection 
with  the  sampling  of  merchandise),  had  called  on  him,  and 
had   stated    that    in    his   belief   the   sugar   companies   were 
defrauding  the  (government  in  the  matter  „f  w...;.hts,  and 
had  stated  that  if  he  could  be  made  an  investigatu.g  officer 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  he  was  confident  that  he  could 
show  there  was  wrongdoing.     Parr  had  been  a  former  school 
fellow  of  Loeb  in  Albany,  and  Loeb  believed  him  to  be  loyal, 
honest,  and  efficient.     He  thereupon  laid  the  matter  before 
me,  and  advised  the  appointment  of  Parr  as  a  special  em- 
ployee of  the  Treasury   Department,  for  the  specific  pur- 
pose of  investigating  the  alleged  sugar  frauds.     1  instructed 
the  Treasury   Department   accordingly,  and  was  informed 
that  there  was  no  vacancy  in  the  force  of  special  employees^ 
but  that  Parr  would  be  given  the  first  place  that  opened 
up.     Early  in  the  spring  of  1905  Parr  came  to  Loeb  again 
and  said  that  he  had  received  additional  information  about 
the  sugar  frauds,  and  was  anxious  to  begin  the  investiga- 
tion.    Loeb   again    discussed    the   matter   with    me ;   and    I 
noiiiud  tlu-Tuasurv  Deparltnent  to  appoint  1  arr  immedi- 
ately.    On  June   l,   1905,  he  received  his  appointment,  and 
was  assigned  to  the  port  of  Boston  for  the  purpose  of  gain- 


TIIK    BK;   suck    WD    IIIK   SglAKK   DKAI,      4KS 

injr  soim-  cxpcriciKi-  ;is  an  inxisti^Mtiii^'  otficir.  Dmiiij,' 
llu'  nil  mill  lif  was  traiislVrn-tl  t<>  I  lie  Maim-  Disliiil.  with 
ia-adquarti'i's  at  I'oitlaiul,  wluic  lie  ninaiiuil  until  March, 
1907.  During  his  service  in  Maine  lie  uncovered  extensive 
W(Mj|  smuggling  frauds.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  wool  case, 
he  appealed  to  I.,oeh  to  have  hiiu  transferred  to  New  York, 
so  that  he  might  undertake  the  investigation  of  the  sugar 
underweighing  frauds.  I  n(»w  called  the  attention  of 
Secretary  Cortelyou  personally  to  the  matter,  so  that  he 
would  be  able  to  keep  a  check  over  any  subordinatis  who 
might  try  to  interfere  with  I'arr,  for  the  conspiracy  was 
evidently  widespread,  the  wealth'  of  the  offenders  great, 
and  the  corruption  in  the  service  far-reaching  while 
moreover  as  always  happens  with  "respectable"  offenders, 
there  were  many  go(jd  men  who  sincerely  disbelieved  in 
the  possibility  of  corruption  on  the  part  of  men  of  such 
high  financial  standing.  Parr  was  assigned  to  New  York 
early  in  .March,  1(^07,  and  at  once  began  an  active  investiga- 
tion oi  the  conditions  existing  on  the  sugar  docks.  This 
terminated  in  the  discovery  of  a  steel  spring  in  one  of  the 
scales  of  the  Havemeyer  &  Elder  docks  in  Brooklyn,  No- 
vember 20,  1907,  which  enabled  us  to  uncover  what  were 
probably  the  most  colosral  frauds  ever  p  rpetrated  in  the 
Customs  Service.  From  the  beginning  of  his  active  work 
in  the  investigation  of  the  sugar  frauds  in  .March,  1907,  to 
Marcn  4,  1909,  Parr,  from  time  to  time,  personally  reported 
to  Loeb,  at  the  White  House,  the  progress  of  his  investi- 
gations, and  Loeb  in  his  turn  kept  me  personally  advised. 
On  one  occasion  there  was  an  attempt  tnade  to  shunt  Parr 
off  the  investigation  and  substitute  another  agent  of  the 
Treasury,  who  was  suspected  of  having  some  relations 
with  the  sugar  companies  under  investigation ;  but  Parr 
reported  the  facts  to  Loeb,  I  sent  for  Secretary  Cortelyou, 
and  Secretary  Cortelyou  promptly  took  charge  of  the 
matter  himself,  putting  Parr  back  on  the  investigation. 
During  the  investigation  Parr  was  subjected  to  all  sorts 
of  harassments,  including  an  attempt  to  bribe  hipi  by 
Spitzcr,  the  dock  superintendent  of  the  Havemeyer  &  Elder 
Refinery,  for  which  Spitzcr  was  convicted  and  served  a  term 


4S^, 


'lllKODORK    R(K)SKVKl/r  -  AN   Al  rOBKX-RAPHY 


i„   nris<.n.      Br/A'/inski,   a   special   ukciU,   wIk-   was   assisting 
I'ari-    was  ciiviitcd  of  iHTJmy  and  also  scrvid  a  term  in 
prison,    lu-   liavinK   changed   his   tostim..ny  m    the   trial..! 
Spit/cr  for  the  attempted  bribery  of  Parr,  from  that  wlucli 
he   gave    before    the   Grand   Jury.     For   his    extraordinary 
services    in    connection    with    this    investigation    1  air    was 
granted  an  award  of  }^loo,ooo  by  the  Treasury  Department. 
District-Attornev    Stimson,    of    New    \  ork,    assisted    hy 
Denison,    Krankfui'ter,   Wise,   and   otlier  employees  of    the 
Department  of  justice,  took  charge  of  the  case,  and  earned 
on  both   civil  and  criminal   proceedings.      The  trial   in   the 
action  against  the  Sugar  Trust,  for  the  recovery  of  duties  on 
the  cargo  of  sugar,  which  was  being  sent  over  the  scales 
at  the  time  of  the  discovery  of  the  steel  spring  by  I  arr   was 
begun  in  190H;  judgment  was  rendered  against  t^ie  deiend- 
ants  on  March   v   'W,  the  day  after  I  left  "t^ice.     Oyer 
four  million  dollars  were  recovered  and  paid  back  into  the 
United  States  Treasury  by  the  sugar  companies  which  had 
perpetrated  the  various  forms  of  fraud.     These  frauds  were 
unearthed  bv    Parr,   Loeb,   Stimson,    Frankfurter,   and   the 
other  men  mentioned  and  their  associates,  and  it  was  to  them 
that  the  people  owed  the  refunding  of  the  huge  sum  of  money 
mentioned.     We  had  already  secured  heavy  fines  from  the 
Sugar  Trust,  and  from  various  big  railways,   and  private 
individuals,    such    as    Kdwm    Earle,    for    unlaw-ful    rebates. 
In  the  case  of  the  chief  ofTcnder,  the  American  Sugar  Refin- 
ing Companv  (the  Sugar  Trust),  criminal  prosecutions  were 
carried  on  against  every  living  man  whose  position  was  such 
that  he  would  naturally  know  about  the  fraud.     All  of  them 
were  indicted,  and  the  biggest  and  most   responsible  ones 
were  convicted.     The  evidence  showed  that  the  president 
of  the  company,   Henry  O.  ITavemeyer,  virtually  ran   the 
entire  companv.  and  was  responsible  for  all   the  details  ot 
the  management.     He  died  two  weeks  after  the  fraud  was 
discovered,  just  as  proceedings  were  being  begun.     Next  to 
him  in  importance  was  the  secretary  and  treasurer,  Charles 
R    Heike,  who  was  convicted.     N'arious  other  ofht:als  and 
employees  of  the  Trust,  and  various  Ciovernment »     ,>loyce^s 
were    indicted,    and   most   of  them   convicted.     .    nest   W. 


THF.   BIG   STICK   AND  THE   SQUARE   DEAL      487 


Gerbracht,  the  supcrintei.J  -nl  of  one  of  itic  rctincrics,  was 
convicted,  but  his  sf , 'ciuc  wa^  rommuted  to  a  short  jail 
imprisonment,  bccai.  c  lie  be -anic  a  (jovcrnment  witness 
and  greatly  assisted  'in.   Ci(!verar  '  nt  in  the  suits. 

Heike's  sentence  wj  omisutet.  so  as  to  excuse  him  from 
going  to  the  penitentiary;  jusi  «,-.  the  penitentiary  sentence 
of  Morse,  the  big  New  York  banker,  who  was  convicted  of 
gross   fraud   and   misapplication  of  funds,   was   commuted. 

Both     commutations     were 

granted  long  after  I  left 
jffice.  In  each  case  the 
commutation  was  granted 
because,  as  was  stated,  of 
the  prisoner's  age  and  state 
of  health.  In  Xlorse's  case 
the  President  originally  re- 
fused the  request,  saying 
that  Morse  had  exhibited 
"fraudulent  and  criminal 
disregard  of  the  trust  im- 
posed upon  him,"  that  "he 
was  entirely  unscrupulous 
as  to  the  methods  he 
adopted,"  and  "that  he 
seemed  at  times  to  be  ab- 
solutely heartless  with  re- 
gard to  the  consequences  to 
others,  and  he  showed  great 
shrewdness      in      obtaining 

large  sums  of  money  from  the  bank  without  adequate 
security  and  without  making  himself  personally  liable  there- 
for." The  two  cases  may  be  considered  in  connection  with 
the  announcement  in  the  public  press  that  on  May  17, 
191 3,  the  President  commuted  the  sentence  of  Lewis  A. 
Banks,  who  was  serving  a  very  long  term  penitentiary  sen- 
tence for  an  attack  on  a  girl  in  the  Indian  Territory;  "the 
reason  for  the  commutation  which  is  set  forth  in  the 
press  being  that  'Banks  is  in  poor  health. 

It  is  no  easy  matter  to  balance  the  claims  of  justice  and 


I'M  1     MdKliiS. 


488      THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

mercy  in  such  cases.  In  these  three  cases  of  all  of  which  I 
had  personal  cognizance,  I  disagreed  radically  with  the  views 
mv  successors  took,  and  with  the  views  which  many- respect- 
able men  took  who  in  these  and  similar  cases,  both  while  1 
was  in  office  and  afterward,  urged  me  to  show,  or  to  ask 
others  to  show,  clemency.  It  then  seemed  to  me,  and  it  now 
seems  to  me,  that  such  clemency  is  from  the  larger  stand- 
point a  gross  wrong  to  the  men  and  women  of  the  country. 
One  of  the  former  special  assistants  of  the  district-attorney, 
Mr  W.  Cleveland  Runyon,  in  commenting  bitterly  on  the 
release  of  Heike  and  Morse  on  account  of  their  hea  th, 
pointed  out  that  their  health  apparently  became  good  when 
once  they  themselves  became  free  men,  and  added: 

"The  commutation  of  these  sentences  amounts  to  a  direct 
interference  with  the  administration  of  justice  by  the  courts. 
Heike  L'ot  a  5^2^000  salarv  and  has  escaped  his  imprison- 
ment, but  whatabout  the  six  }^i8  a  week  checkers,  who  were 
sent  to  jail,  one  of  them  a  man  of  more  than  sixty  .  It  is 
cases  like  this  that  create  discontent  and  anarchy.  1  hey 
make  it  seem  plain  that  there  is  one  law  for  the  rich  and 
another  for  the  poor  man,  and  I  for  one  will  protest. 

In  dealing  with  Heike  the  individual  (or  Morse  or  any 
other  individual),   it   is  necessary   to  emphasize  the  social 
aspects  of  his  case.     The  moral  of  the  Heike  case,  as  has  been 
well  said,  is  "how  easy  it  is  for  a  man  in  mmlern  corporate 
organization    to    drift    into    wrongdoing.       The    moral    re- 
straints are  loosened  in  the  case  of  a  man  like  Heike  by  the 
insulation  of  himself  from  the  sordid  details  of  crime,  through 
industrially  coerced  intervening  agents.     Professor  Ross  has 
made  the  penetrating  observation  that  "distance  disinfects 
dividends"-   it  also  weakens  individual  responsibility,  par- 
ticularly on  the  part  of  the  very  managers  of  large  business, 
who  should  feel  il  most  acutely.     One  of  the  officers  of  the 
Department   of    justice  who  conducted   the  suit,  and  who 
inclined   to  the  ride  of  mercy  in   the   matter    nevertheless 
writes-     "Heike   is   a   beautiful   illustration  <.f  mental  and 
moral  ob^cuiation  in  the  business  life  of  an  otherwise  val- 
nable  member  <.f  society.     Heike  had  an  ample  share  m  the 
guidance  of  the   atTairs  of  the  American   Sugar  Company, 


"1! 


THE   Bk;   STICK   AND  THE   SQUARE   DEAL      489 

and  wc  arc  apt  to  have  a  foreshortened  picture  of  his  respon- 
sibility, because  he  operated  from  the  easy  coign  of  vantage 
of  executive  remoteness.  It  is  difficult  to  say  to  what  extent 
he  did,  directly  or  indirectly,  profit  by  the  sordid  practices 
of  his  compan}-.  But  the  social  damage  of  an  individual 
in  his  position  may  be  just  as  deep,  whether  merciy  the 
zest  of  the  game  or  hard  cash  be  his  dominant  motive." 

I  have  coupled  the  cases  of  the  big  banker  and  the  Sugar 
Trust  official  and  the  case  of  the  man  convicted  of  a  criminal 
assault  on  a  woman.  All  of  the  criminals  weie  released 
from  penitentiary  sentences  on  grounds  of  ill  health.  The 
offenses  were  typical  of  the  worst  crimes  committed  at  the 
two  ends  of  the  social  scale.  One  offense  was  a  crime  of 
brutal  violence;  the  other  offenses  were  crimes  of  a.->tute 
corruption.  All  of  them  were  offenses  which  in  my  judg- 
ment were  of  such  a  character  that  clemency  towards  the 
offender  worked  grave  injustice  to  the  community  as  a  whole, 
injustice  so  grave  that  its  effects  might  be  far-reaching  in 
their  damage. 

Every  time  that  rape  or  criminal  assault  on  a  woman  in 
pardoned,  and  anything  less  than  the  full  penalty  of  the 
law  exacted,  a  premium  is  put  on  the  practice  (jf  lynching 
such  offenders.  Kvery  time  a  big  monied  offender,  .no 
naturally  excites  interest  and  sympathy,  and  who  has  n^any 
friends,  is  excused  from  serving  a  sentence  which  a  man  of 
less  prominence  and  fewer  friends  would  have  to  serve, 
justice  is  discredited  in  the  eyes  of  plain  people  and  to 
undermine  faith  in  justice  is  to  strike  at  the  foundation  of 
the  Republic.  As  for  ill  health,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  few  people  are  as  healthy  in  prison  as  they  would  be 
outside;  and  there  should  be  no  discrimination  among 
criminals  on  this  score;  either  all  criminals  who  grow  un- 
healthy should  be  let  out,  or  none.  Pardons  must  some- 
times be  given  in  order  that  the  cause  of  justice  may  be 
served;  but  in  eases  such  ;u.  these  I  am  considering,  while  I 
know  that  many  amiable  people  differ  from  me,  I  am  obliged 
to  say  that  in  my  judgment  the  pardons  work  far-reaching 
harm   to  the  cause  of  justice. 

Among    the    big    corporations    themselves,    even    where 


490     THKODORE   ROOSFA'ELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAI  .iY 

they  did  wrong,  there  was  a  wide  difference  in  the  moral 
obliquilv  indicated  by  the  wrongdoer.  There  was  a  wide 
distinction  between  the  offenses  committed  m  the  case  ot 
the  Northern  Securities  Company,  and  the  offenses  because 
of  which  the  Sugar  Trust,  the  Tobacco  Trust,  and  the 
Standard  Oil  Trust  were  successfully  prosecuted  under  my 

Administration.       It     was 
vital  to  destroy  the  North- 
cm    Securities    Company ; 
but    the    men    creating   it 
had  done  so  in  open   and 
above-board  fashion,  acting 
under  what  they,  and  most 
of  the  members  of  the  bar, 
thought  to  be  the  law  es- 
tablished by  the  Supreme 
Court  in  the  Knight  sugar 
case.       But    the    Supreme 
Court    in    its    decree    dis- 
solving   the    Standard    Oil 
and  Tobacco  Trusts,  con- 
demned   them    in    the    se- 
verest language  for  moral 
turpitude;    and    an     even 
severer    meed   f)f    condem- 
nation    should    be    visited 
on  the  Sugar  Trust. 

However,  all   the   trusts 


JaMIS   R     (lAKFIKLl). 


and  big  corporations  against  which  vye  proceeded  -  which 
included  in  their  directorates  practically  all  the  b.gges 
financiers  in  the  country  -  joined  in  making  the  bitterest 
assaults  on  me  and  on  my  Administration.  Of  their  actions 
I  wrote  as  follows  to  Attonu-y-CIeneral  Bonaparte,  who  had 
been  a  peculiarly  close  friend  and  adviser  through  the  period 
covered  by  my  public  life  in  high  office  and  who,  together 
with  Attorney-General  Moody,  possessed  the  same  under- 
standing .ympatln-  with  my  social  and  industrial  program 
that  was  possessed  by  such  officials  as  Straus,  Garheld, 
H.  K.  Smith,  and  Pinchot.     The  letter  runs : 


THK   BIG   STICK   AND  THK   SQrARK   DKAF,      491 


Janiiar\    2,   li)0><. 

.Uy  (/>tir  lionaparlr : 

I  must  congratulate  you  on  your  adinirabU-  spt-cch  at 
Chicago.  \'()U  said  the  very  things  it  was  good  t(j  say  at 
this  time.  What  you  said  bore  especial  weight  because  it 
represented  what  you  had  done.  Vou  have  shown  by  what 
you  have  actually  accomplished  that  the  law  is  enforced 
against  the  wealthiest  corporatiiiu,  and  the  richest  and  most 
powerful  manager  or  manipulator  of  that  corporation,  just 
as  resolutely  and  fearlessly  as  against  the  humblest  citizen. 
The  Department  of  Justice  is  now  in  very  fact  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice,  and  justice  is  meted  out  with  an  even  hand 
to  great  and  small,  rich  and  poor,  weak  and  strong.  Those 
who  have  denounced  you  and  tlie  action  of  the  Department 
of  Justice  are  either  misled,  or  else  are  the  very  wrongdoers, 
and  the  agents  of  the  very  wrongdoers,  who  have  for  so  many 
years  gone  scot-free  and  flouted  the  laws  with  impunity. 
Above  all,  you  are  to  be  congratulated  upon  the  bitterness 
felt  and  expressed  towards  you  by  tlie  representatives  and 
agents  of  the  great  law-defying  corporations  of  immense 
wealth,  who,  until  within  the  last  half-dozen  years,  have 
treated  themselves  and  have  expected  others  to  treat  them 
as  being  beyond   and   above   all   possible  check   from   law. 

It  was  time  to  say  something,  for  tlu-  representatives  of 
predatory  wealth,  of  wealth  accumulated  on  a  giant  scale 
by  iniquity,  by  wrongdoing  in  many  forms,  by  plain  swind- 
ling, by  oppressing  wage-workers,  by  manipulating  secur- 
ities, by  unfair  and  unwholesome  competition  and  by  stock- 
jobbing, in  short,  by  conduct  abhoriTut  to  every  man  of 
ordinarily  decent  conscience,  have  during  the  last  few 
months  made  it  evident  that  they  are  banded  together  to 
work  for  a  reaction,  to  endeavor  to  overthrow  and  discredit 
all  who  honestly  administer  the  law,  and  to  secure  a  return 
to  the  days  when  every  unscrupulous  wrongdoer  could  do 
what  he  wished  unchecked,  provided  he  had  enough  money. 
They  attack  you  because  they  know  your  honesty  and  fear- 
lessness, and  dread  them.  The  enormous  sums  of  money 
these  men  have  at  their  control  cable  them  to  carry  on 
an  effective  campaign.     They  find  their  tools  in  a  portion 


492 


THEODORK   ROOSEVKLT  -  AX   ArTOBIOGRAPHV 


of  tlu'  public  pirss,  incliuliiiK  i-spccially  cirtain  of  tlic  ),Mrat 
l-ivw   York    iicwspapiTs.      Tlti-y    fuul    ihfir   a^i'iUs    in    some 
men  ill  public  liff,    -now  uikI   tluii  occupying,  or  having 
occupied,  pojitions   as   high   as   Senator  or  CJovcrnor,  —  in 
some  men  in  the  pulpit,  and  most  melancholy  of  all,  in  a 
few  men  on  the  bench.      By  gifts  to  colleges  and   univer- 
sities they  are  occasionally  able  to  subsidize  in  their  own 
interest  some  head  of  an  educational  body,  who,  save  only 
a  iudge,  should  of  all  men  be  most  careful  to  keep  his  skirts 
clear  from  the  taint    )f  such  corruption.     There  are  ample 
material    rewards    for    those    who    serve    with    fidelity    the 
Mammon  of  unrighteousness,  but  they  are  dearly  paid  for 
by    that   institution  of   learning   whose   head,    by   example 
aiid  precept,  teaches  the  scholars  who  sit  under  him  that 
there  is  one  law  for  the  rich  and  another  for  the  poor.      The 
amount  of  money  the  representatives  of  the  great  monied 
interests  are  willing  to  spend  can  be  gauged  by  their  recent 
publicatiim  broadcast  throughout  the  papers  of  this  country 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the   Pacific  of  huge  advertisements, 
attacking  with  envenomed  bitterness  the    Administration  s 
policv  of  warring  against  successful  dishonesty,  advertise- 
ment's that  must  have  cost  enormous  sums  of  money.      I  his 
advertisement,  as  also  a  pampldet  called  "The  Roosevelt 
Panic,"  and  one  or  two  similar  books  and  pamphlets,  are 
written  especially  in  the  interest  of  the  Standard  Oil  and 
Harriman  combinations,  but  also  defend  all  the  individuals 
and  corporations  of  great  wealth  that  have  been  guilty  of 
wrongdoing.     From  the  railroad  rate  law  to  the  pure  food 
law,  every    measure  for  honesty  in  business   that  has  been 
pressed  during  the  last  six  years,  has  been  opposed  by  the.-.e 
men,  on  its  passage  and  in  its  administration,  with  every 
resource  that  bitter  and  unscrupulous  craft  could  suggest, 
and  the  command  of  almost  unlimited  money  secure.      I  hese 
men  do  not  themselves  speak  or  write ;  they  hire  others  to 
do  their  bidding.     Their  spirit  and  purpose  are  made  cMear 
alike  by  the  editorials  of  the  papers  owned  in,  or  whose 
policy  is  dictated  by,  Wall  Street,  ai.  \  by  the  speeches  of 
public  men  who,  as  Senators,  Governors,  or  Mayors,  have 
served  these  their  masters  to  the  cost  of  the  plain  people. 


TlIK   BIG   STICK  AND   THE   SQUARE   DEAL      493 

At  one  time  one  of  their  writers  or  speakers  attacks  the  rate 
law  as  the  cause  of  the  panic;  he  is,  whether  in  public  life 
or  not,  usually  a  clever  corporation  lawyer,  and  he  is  not  so 
foolish  a  heinjj  as  to  believe  in  the  truth  of  what  he  says  ; 
he  has  too  closely  represented  the  railroads  not  to  know 
well  that  the  Hepburn  Rate  Bill  has  helped  every  honest 
railroad,  ami  has  hurt  only  the  railroads  that  regarded 
themselves  as  above  the  law.  At  another  time,  one  of  them 
assails  the  Administration  for  not  imprisoning  people  under 
the  Sherman  Anti-'I'rusi  Law;  for  declining  to  make  what 
he  well  knows,  in  view  of  the  actual  attitude  of  juries  (as 
shown  in  the  'I'obacco  Trust  cases  and  in  San  Francisco 
in  one  or  two  of  the  cases  brought  against  corrupt  busiiu-ss 
men)  would  have  been  the  futile  endeavor  to  imprisi)n  defend- 
ants whom  we  are  actually  able  to  fine.  lie  raises  the 
usual  clamor,  raised  by  all  who  object  to  the  enforcement  of 
the  law,  that  we  are  fining  corporations  instead  of  putting 
the  heads  of  the  corporations  in  jail ;  and  he  states  that  this 
does  not  really  harm  the  chief  offenders.  Were  this  state- 
ment true,  he  himself  would  not  be  found  attacking  us. 
The  extraordinary  violence  of  the  assault  upon  our  policy 
contained  in  speeches  like  these,  in  the  articles  in  the  sub- 
sidized press,  in  such  huge  advertisements  and  pamphlets 
as  those  above  referred  to,  and  the  enormous  sums  of  money 
spent  in  these  various  ways,  give  a  fairly  accurate  measure 
of  the  anger  and  terror  which  our  actions  luive  caused  the 
corrupt  men  of  vast  wealth  to  feci  '.;  the  very  marrow  of 
their    being. 

The  man  thus  attacking  us  is  usually,  like  so  many  of  his 
fellows,  either  a  great  lawyer,  or  a  paid  editor  who  takes  his 
commands  from  the  financiers  and  his  arguments  from  their 
attorneys.  If  the  former,  he  has  defended  many  malefac- 
tors, and  he  knows  well  that,  thanks  to  the  advice  of  lawyers 
like  himself,  a  certain  kind  of  moderrt  corporation  has  been 
turned  into  an  admirable  instrument  by  which  to  render 
it  well  nigh  impossible  to  get  at  the  really  guilty  man,  so 
that  in  most  cases  the  only  way  of  punishing  the  wrong  is 
by  fining  the  corporation  or  by  proceeding  personally  against 
some  of  the  minor  agents.     These  lawyers  and  their  employ- 


t 

4,4     THKODORK   ROOSKVKLT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
SSIL:^  udW»  U^^on'^o  ai.\o.™s  u,  be  .„ 

mmmm 

urc  wrune  bv  the  woes  ot   the  migniv.      m^  i        j. 

la  ?Sti?Sfa;l| 

majoiiLj   "1  thpsr  maiontv  slocknoluers. 

behind  them  the  good-will  (^t  these  major  i>  d^liber- 

'^Un^r  an-  iiot  eiitit  ed  to  the  slightest  pity   it  tht\    utnuti 

riLinal  associates.     Let  these  innocent  people  be  earttu 
n  to  inve      in  corporations  where  those  in  control  are  no 

rha\Thrm    oritv  s-tockhordc'rTof  the  Standard  Oil  are  othc-rs 
h^n  Xlrl^Kk^eller  and  his  -ociatc^them^ves  ancl  tlu 
beneficiaries    of    their    wrongdoing?     \Vhe      ^^c     stock 
watered  so  that  the  innocent  investors  suffer,  a  grave  wrong 
uYndeed  done  to  these  innocent  investors  as  wel    as  to  the 
nublic    but  the  public  men,  lawyers  and  editors,  to  whom  I 
^  f.r    ;io  not  under  these  circumstances  express  sympathy 
[^  h^S^^er:^:.  the  contrary  they  -  t^e^st^  pn.U. 
with  frantic  vehemence  agamst  our  ^"ff' ';.^> J^^ng      The 
a    stop    to    over-capitahzation    and    stock-watering. 


IIIK   BK;   SlICK   AM)  THK   SgilARK   DEM.      495 

apologists  of  successful  dislioncsty  always  Jt-claim  against 
any  i-fToit  to  punish  or  pnvtnt  it  on  the  ground  that  such 
effort  will  "unsettle  business."  It  is  they  who  by  their 
acts  have  unsettletl  Inisiness;  and  tlie  very  men  raising  this 
cry  spend  hundreds  of  lliousands  of  dollars  in  securing,  by 
speech,  editorial,  book  or  pamphlet,  the  defense  by  mis- 
statement of  what  they  have  done ;  and  yet  when  we  correct 
their  misstatements  by  telling  the  truth,  they  declaim 
against  us  for  breaking  silence,  lest  "values  be  unsettled  !" 
They  have  hurt  honest  business  men,  honest  working  men, 
honest  farmers  ;  and  now  thev  clamor  against  the  truth  being 
told. 

The  keynote  of  all  these  attacks  upon  the  effort  to  secure 
honesty  in  business  and  in  politics,  is  expressed  in  a  recent 
speech,  in  which  the  speaker  stated  that  prosperity  had 
been  checked  by  the  effort  for  the  "moral  regeneration  of 
the  business  world,"  an  effort  which  he  denounced  as  "un- 
natural, unwarranted  and  injurious"  and  for  which  he 
stated  the  panic  was  the  penalty.  The  morality  of  such  a 
plea  is  precisely  as  great  as  if  made  on  behalf  of  the  men 
caught  in  a  gambling  establishment  when  that  gambling 
establishment  is  raided  by  the  police.  If  such  words  mean 
anything  they  mean  that  those  whose  sentiments  they 
represent  stand  against  the  effort  to  bring  about  a  moral 
regeneration  of  business  which  will  prevent  a  repetition 
of  the  insurance,  b  inking  and  street  railroad  scandals  in 
Xew  York;  a  repetition  of  the  Chicago  and  Alton  deal;  a 
repetition  of  the  combination  between  certain  professional 
politicians,  certain  professional  labor  leaders  and  certain 
big  financiers  from  the  disgrace  of  which  San  Francisco  has 
just  been  rescued;  a  repetition  of  the  successful  efforts  by 
the  Standard  Oil  people  to  crush  out  every  competitor,  to 
overawe  the  common  carriers,  and  to  establish  a  monopoly 
which  treats  the  public  with  the  contempt  which  the  public 
deserves  so  long  as  it  permits  men  like  the  public  men  of 
whom  I  speak  to  represent  it  in  politics,  i.ien  like  the  heads 
of  colleges  to  whom  I  refer  to  educate  its  youth.  The  out- 
cry againit  stopping  dishonest  practices  among  the  very 
wealthy  is  precisely  similar  to  the  outcry  raised  against  every 


4</> 


TIIKODORK   KOOSlAll.T       AN    AlTOlUOdRAIMlY 


f,„.....lh,  i.  will  "hurt  InisiiHss."  Tl.r  ^.•.nu•  ..uU  .  \  is  iiKU  r 
aLMinst  tlu-  IXiKUtiiKi.t  .-I  Ju^li.r  In,  p,..Mc..tiMK  tlu-  lu-ads 
of  c..I..ssal  c..rpon>ti..Ms  lluU  is  ..kkU-  aKa.nsl  ^\n■  nn-u  who 
in  San  Francisco  ar.  prosecuting  wth  '";P^'';i!' /p'^'"  ^ 
the  wrongdoers  among  business  men,  puhhc  othcials,  and 


<i  nyrlchl  hv  I'mlcrwooU  and  rnrtprwond 

{'.[FFORD  Pisilior 

labor  leaders  alike.  The  principle  is  the  same  in  the  two 
cases.  lust  as  the  blackmailer  and  the  onbe  giver  stand 
on  the  "same  evil  eminence  of  infamy,  s..  the  man  who 
makes  an  enormous  fortune  by  corrupting  Legislatures  and 
municipalities  and  fleecing  his  stockholders  and  the  public- 
stands  on  a  level  with  the  creature  wiio  tattens  on  the  b  ood 
money  of  the  gambling  house,  the  saloon  and  the  brothel. 


V)7 


TIIK    lilC.   STICK    AM)    IHK   SQIAKI.    DKAI 

•t    Hist    siplit 


rr, 

;it    llic  s;mif 
a!)h(>i  ritl    bv 


Moreover.  l.(,tli  kiiul>  of  ((MTiiptioii  in  the  l;ist  ;iii;il>  sis  arc 
f;ir  more  illtim.itely  (  ..lUleileil  lli.iii  woillil 
apfiear;  llie  w  roii^-doiiiL'  is  ,il  l)ot  i,  ,i,i  t  he  same.  Corrupt 
Inisiness  and  corrupt  polities  act  ami  ri'aet,  with  ever  in- 
creasiiiK  cK;baseiiieiit,  one  on  the  other;  the  rehate-takiT, 
the  fraiichise-tralHcker,  tin-  maiiifnilator  ,,t  securities,  the 
purveyor  and  proii'clor  of  vice,  the  Mack-mailing'  ward 
Ix'ss.  the  ballot  box  slutfer,  the  detnaL'.-L'ue.  the  mob  Uad 
till'  hirtd  l)ull>  and  mankiller.  all  alike  work 
web  of  corruption,  and  all  alike  should  be 
holiest   men. 

The    'Mnisincss"    which    is    hurt    b\     the    movement    for 
honesty  is   the  kind  of  business   which,   in   the  lon^  run,  it 
pavs  the  country   to  have  hurt.      It   is  the  kind  of  business 
which   has   tt-nded   to  make  tlu'  ver\    n;ime  "hit'li   Hnanci" 
a    term   of   scandal    to   which    all    ln'.nest    .Xmerican    men   of 
business  should  join  in  putting'  an  end.     ( )ru'  of  the  special 
pleaders    for    business    dishonest),    in    a    recent    speech,    in 
denouncing'  the  .\dinini>tralion  for  enforcinir  tlu'  law  aj;ainst 
the   huue  and  corrupt    corporations   which   have  detii^d   tlie 
law,    also   denounced    it    for    endea\ orin^'    to   sicure    a    fai- 
reachin^'  law  makint'  emplowrs   liable  for  iniuries  to  their 
employees.      It   is  nurt   and 'til   that   the  apologists  for  cor- 
rupt wealth  should  oppose  ever_\    etTort   to  relieve  weak  and 
helpless    people    from    crushiiivr'  misfortune    brou.i.'ht    upon 
them  by  injury  in  the  business  from  which  the\   u'ain  a  bare 
livelihood  and   their  employers   fortunes.      It  is  In  pocritical 
baseness  to  speak  of  a  ^irl  who  works  in  a  factorv' where  the 
dangerous  machinery  is  unprotected  as  having'  the  "right" 
freely  to  contract  to  expose  herself  to  dangers  to  life  and  limb. 
She  has  no  alternative  but  to  suffer  want  or  else  to  expose 
herself  to  such  dangers,  and  when  she  loses  a  hand  or  is  other- 
wise maimed  or  disfigured  for  life  it  is  a  moral  wrong  that 
the  burden  of  the  risk  necessarih   incidental  to  the  business 
should  be  placed  with  crushing  weight  upon  her  weak  shoul- 
ders and  the  man  who  has  profited  b_\  her  work  escape  scot- 
free.      This  is  what  our  opponents  adxdcate,  and  it  is  proper 
that  they  should  advocate  it,  for  it  rounds  out  their  ad\-ocacy 
of  those   most   dangerous   members  of   the   criminal    class. 


m 


4,8     THKODOKK   ROOSKVKIT       AN    ArTOBKKlRAPIIV 

,lu.  criminals  ..f  vast  wealth,  the  nu-n  wh..  can  aff.)ra  best 
tr^Ztl.  chan,pi.mship  in  the  press  a-u Un  .1^  sUnnp^ 

lud^   ■  an"o   r    u!Uras  a  wh-le     .e  brave  and  t.pr.K  U 
en      But  there  is  need  that  those  wh..  go  wrong  should  nt 

be  allowed  to  feel  that  there  ^'-  -'"f -"fJ^I^/jL    "t 
wrontfdoinir      A  iudge  who  on  tiie  bench  eilhtr  trucklis  to 
Tmct  or'bows  down  before  a  corporat  on  ;  or  who  hav.ng 
eft  the  bench  to  become  a  corp.ratu.n    awyer,  s^-'»^    ^^'^J. 
his  cent       V  denouncing  as  enemies  of  property  all  tlo.e 
who  seek  t.;  stop  the  abuses  <.f  the  cr.mnu    nch;  sue     a 
man  oerforuis   an  even   worse  service  to  the    body    poiuic 
than  th        egislaf.r  or  Executive  wlu»  goes  wrong      In  no 
wav    can  respect   for  the  courts  be  so  quickly  undermn  ed 
Tby  teaching  the  public  through     he  actu.n  .^  a  judge 
himself  that  there  is   reason    or  the    "«^;'^  J!';';  \  ^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
The  iudire  who  bv  word  <.r  deed  makes  U  pain  tnai  tnt 
corrupt  corporation,  the  law-defying  crporatum    the    aw- 
defving  rich  man,  has  in  him  a  sure  and    rustvvorth)   all) 
the  iXe  whc.  by  misuse  of  the  process  of  mjunctu.n  n  ake 
p  ain    hit  in  him  the  wage-worker  has  a  dotermmed  and 
uns  rupulous  enemy,  the  judge  who  ^1-^.    u"  dccKle     n  an 
emolovers'  liability  (^r  a  tenement  house  factor)  cast  sows 
that  he  1  as  neither  sympathy  for  nor  understanding  of  iho.e 

Uhcis'^a  true  scrvant'of  th.  people,  if  l.c  -  "P^f  «•---■  ff 
fearless  he  will  unhes  latingly  disregard  even  tic  wisiks  oi 
"e  p'ple  i7ihey  conflict  .'th  the  eternal  pnncpk-s  of  ngl 
Vs  aWiust  wrong.  He  must  serve  the  people ;  but  ht  must 
ervf  hi  conSence  first.  All  honor  to.such  a  i-f^^^J^^ 
all  honor  cannot  be  rendered  him  if  it  is  rendered  equally 
to  his  brethren  who  fall  immeasurably  below  I  he  high  ideals 
for  whicV  V  stands.     There  should  be  a  sharp  discrimination 


THE   BIG  STICK  AM)  Hit:  SQLARK   DEAL     499 

against  such  judj^cs.  Tluy  claim  immunity  from  criticism, 
and  the  claim  is  heatedly  advanced  by  men  and  newspapers 
like  those  of  whom  I  speak.  Most  certainly  thev  can  claim 
immunity  frt)m  untruthful  criticism;  and  their  champions, 
the  newspapers  and  the  public  men  I  have  mentioned, 
exquisitely  illustrate  by  their  own  actions  mendacious 
criticism  in  its  most  flagrant  and  iniquitous  form. 

But  no  servant  of  the  people  has  a  right  to  expect  to  be 
free  from  just  and  honest  criticism.  It  is  the  newspapers, 
and  the  public  men  whose  thoughts  and  deeds  shmv  them  to 
be  most  alien  to  homsty  and  truth  who  themselves  loudly 
object  to  truthful  and  honest  criticism  of  their  fellow-serv- 
ants f)f  the  great  monied  interests. 

We  have  no  quarrel  with  the  individuals,  whether  public 
men,  lawyers  or  editors,  to  whom  I  refer.     The.se  men  derive 
their  sole  power  from  the  great,  sinister  offenders  who  stand 
behind  them.     The)-  are  but  puppets  who  mo\e  as  the  strings 
are  pulled  by   those   who  control   the  enormous  masses  of 
corporate  wealth  which  if  itself  left  uncontrolled  threatens 
dire  evil   to  the   Republic.      It   is  not  the  puppets,  but   the 
strong,  cunning  men  and  the  mighty  forces  working  for  evil 
behind,  and  to  a  certain  extent  through,  the  puppets,  with 
whom   we  have  to  deal.     We  seek   to  control   law-defying 
wealth,  in  the  first  place  to  prevent  its  doing  evil,  and  in  the 
ne.xt  place  to  avoid  the  vindictive  and  dreadful  radicalism 
vyhich  if  left  uncontrolled  it  is  certain  in  the  end  to  arouse. 
Sweeping  attacks  upon  all  property,  upon  all  men  o{  means, 
without  regard  to  whether  they  do  well  or  ill,  would  sound 
the  death  knell  of  the  Republic  ;  and  such  attacks  become 
inevitable  if  decent  citizens  permit  rich  men  whose  l.-es  are 
corrupt  and  evil  to  domineer  in  swollen  pride,  unchecked  and 
unhindered,  over  the  destinies  of  this  country.     \\V  act  in 
no  vindictive  spirit,  and  we  are  no  respecters  of  persons. 
If  a  labor  union  does  what  is  wrong,  we  oppose  it  as  fearlessly 
as  we  oppose  a  corporation  that  does  wrong;  and  we  stand 
with  equal  stoutness   for  the   rights  of  the  man  of  wealth 
and  for  the  rights  of  the  wage-workers;  just  as  much  so  for 
>ne  as  for  the  other.      We  seek  lo  .-.l.jp  vv  longdoing ;  and  we 
des'-    to  punish  the  wrongdoer  only  so  far  as  is  necessarv  in 


500     -niliODORE  R(K)Sl::\ial--AN   AUTOBKXJRAl'llY 

nrdci-  to  acliicvc  this  end.     We  arc  the    stanch    upholders 
otverv  hones    man,  whether  business  man  or  waste-worker. 
'  T  do  not  for  a  moment  beheve  that  pur  aetions  have 
,,l^;;t 'fVusiness  distress    so  far  ^t.,s^ 

t-nv  check  to  an    unlu-althy   scorning  prosperity,   1 

Jl'^eZnetm  ni;s.han"ftLho,,es,„,a,,wl,oear,,s 

each  dav's  livelihood  by  that  day's  sweat  of  1-;^  '" ';;■•,;.,: 

x':;^a;;Xoffi:;;r;Sii.^;'""^i-r?i 

^''':.K.!;;dK'"d.;  we  hope    -fervently  do  we  pray  -    ^t  this 

„,i,hty  scourge  may  «rf>„,P-f,»Xa  hv  the  b  ndsmt'n-s 
that    t  contuuK-  until  all  the-  wealth  pilcu  nv   u 

^ir'anl^li/drLn  with  ^i--:^,f .  ^j  j^;;^.;  ^^ 

housand  years  ago,  so  si.  1  it  must  be  ^aid      ^  ^^  judgnu. 

of  the  Lord  are  true  and  '^'^'l^'^-\';,  ^•.^'g^V^^V.-r  all"   with 

"With   malice  toward   none;  with  charity   toi    ^" ;  ;^' 
ftr.2^s  in  the  right,  as  C^od  gives  us  t.>  see  the  right,  let 
us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in. 

Sincerely  vours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Hon.  CiiAKi.KS  j.  Bonaparte. 


CHAPTER   XIII 


SOCIAL   AND    INDUSTRIAL   JUSTICE 

BY  the  time  I  became  President  I  had  grown  to  feel 
with  deep  intensity  of  conxiction  that  govern- 
mental agencies  must  find  their  justification 
largely  in  the  way  in  which  they  are  used  for 
the  practical  betterment  of  living  and  working  conditions 
among  the  mass  of  the  people.  I  felt  that  the  fight  was 
really  for  the  abolition  of  privilege;  and  one  of  the  first 
stages  in  the  battle  was  necessarily  to  fight  for  the  rights  of 
the  workingman.  For  this  reason  I  felt  most  strongly 
that  all  that  the  government  could  do  in  the  interest 
of  labor  should  be  done.  The  Federal  (lovernment  can 
rarely  act  with  the  directness  that  the  State  governments 
act.  It  can,  however,  do  a  good  deal.  .\Iy  purpose  was 
to  make  the  National  (lOvernment  itself  a  model  employer 
of  labor,  the-  effort  being  to  make  the  per  diem  employee 
just  as  much  as  the  Cabinet  otHcer  regard  himself  as  one  of 
the  partners  employed  in  the  service  of  the  public,  proud  f)f 
his  work,  eager  to  do  it  in  the  best  possible  manner,  and 
confident  of  just  treatment.  Our  aim  was  also  to  secure 
good  laws  wherever  the  National  (iovernment  had  power, 
notably  in  the  Territories,  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
in  connection  with  inter-State  commerce.  I  tound  the  eight- 
hour  law  a  mere  farce,  the  departmiMits  rarel)  enforcing  it 
with  any  degree  of  efficiency.  This  I  remedied  by  executive 
action.  Unfortunately,  thoroughly  efficient  government 
servants  ohcn  proved  to  be  the  prime  offenders  so  far  as 
the  enforcement  oi"  the  eight-hour  law  was  concerned,  because 
in  their  zeal  to  get  good  work  done  for  the  Government  they 
became  harsh  taskmasters,  and  declined  to  consider  the 
needs  of  their   fellow-employees   who   served    ui.der   them. 

SO" 


I'ti 


502     THEODORK    ROOSKA  Kl/l- A\   AUT()BK)CRAPI1V 

Thc  more  I  had  studied  the  subject  tlie  more  strongly  1 
liad  become  convinced  lliat  an  eight-hour  day  under  the 
conditions  of  labor  in  the  Inited  States  was  all  that  could, 
with  wisdom  and  propriety,  be  required  either  by  the 
Government  or  by  private  employers ;  that  more  than  this 
meant,  on  the  average,  a  decrease  in  the  qualities  that  tell  for 
good  citizenship.  I  finally  solved  the  problem,  as  far  as 
CJovernment  employees  were  concerned,  by  calling  in 
Charles  P.  Xeiil,  the  head  of  the  Labor  Bureau;  and,  acting 
on  his  advice,  I  speedily  made  the  eight-hour  law  really 
effective.  .\ny  man  who  shirked  his  work,  who  dawdled 
and  idled,  received  no  mercy ;  slackness  is  even  worse  than 
harshness;  for  exactly  as  in  battle  mercy  to  the  coward 
is  cruelty  to  the  brave  man,  so  in  civil  life  slackness  towards 
the  vicious  and  idle  is  harshness  towards  the  honest  and  hard- 
working. 

We  passed  a  good  law  protecting  the  lives  and  health  of 
miners  in  the  Territories,  and  other  laws  providing  for  the 
supervision  of  employ.ment  agencies  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia, and  protecting  the  health  of  motormen  and  conductors 
on  street  railways  in  the  District.  We  practically  started 
the  Bureau  of  Mines.  We  provided  for  safeguarding 
factory  employees  in  the  District  against  accidents,  and  for 
the  restriction  of  child  labor  therein.  We  passed  a  work- 
men's compensation  law  for  the  protection  of  Government 
employees ;  a  law  which  did  not  go  as  far  as  I  wished,  but 
which  was  tlte  best  I  could  get,  and  which  committed  the 
Government  to  the  right  policy.  We  provided  for  an 
investigation  of  woman  and  child  labor  in  the  L  nited 
States.  We  incorporated  the  National  Child  Labor  Com- 
mittee. Where  we  had  most  difficulty  was  with  the  railway 
companies  engaged  in  inter-State  business.  We  passed 
an  act  improving  safety  appliances  on  railway  trains  with- 
out much  opposition,  but  we  had  more  trouble  with  acts 
regulating  the  hours  of  labor  of  railway  eirtployees  and 
making  those  railways  which  were  engaged  in  inter-State 
commerce  liable  for  injuries  to  or  the  death  of  their  em- 
ployees while  on  duty.  One  important  step  in  coniiection 
with    these    latter    laws    was    taken    by    Attorney-General 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


503 


Moody  when,  on  behalf  of  the  Government,  he  intervened 
in  the  case  of  a  wronged  employee.  It  is  unjust  that  a  law 
which  has  been  declared  public  policy  by  the  representatives 
of  the  people  should  be  submitted  to  the  possibility  of  nullifi- 
cation because  the  Government  leaves  the  enforcement  of 
it  to  the  private  initiative  of  poor  people  who  have  just  suf- 
fered some  crushing  accident.  It  should  be  the  business  of 
the  Government  to  enforce  laws  of  this  kind,  and  to  appear 
in  court  to  argue  for  their  constitutionality  and  proper 
enforcement.  Thanks  to  Moody,  the  (Government  assumed 
this  position.  The  first  employers'  liability  law  affecting 
inter-State  railroads  was  declared  unconstitutional.  We 
got  through  another,  which  stood  the  test  of  the  courts. 

The  principle  to  which  we  especially  strove  to  give  ex- 
pression, through  these  laws  and  through  excutive  action, 
was  that  a  right  is  valueless  unless  reduced  from  the  abstract 
to  the  concrete.  This  sounds  like  a  truism.  So  far  from 
being  such,  the  effort  practically  to  apply  it  was  almost 
revolutionary,  and  gave  rise  to  the  bitterest  denunciation 
of  us  by  all  the  big  lawyers,  and  all  the  big  newspaper 
editors,  who,  whether  sincerely  or  for  hire,  gave  expression 
to  the  views  of  the  privileged  classes.  Kver  since  the  Civil 
War  very  many  of  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  not  as  regards 
ordinary  actions  between  man  and  man,  but  as  regards  the 
application  of  great  governmental  policies  for  social  and 
industrial  justice,  had  been  in  reality  nothing  but  ingenious 
justifications  of  the  theory  that  these  policies  were  mere 
high-sounding  abstractions,  and  were  not  to  be  given  practical 
effect.  The  tendency  of  the  courts  had  Ix'en,  in  the  majt)rity 
of  cases,  jealously  to  exert  their  great  power  in  protecting 
those  who  least  needed  protection  and  hardly  to  use  their 
power  at  all  in  the  interest  of  those  who  most  needed  pro- 
tection. Our  desire  was  to  make  the  Federal  (jovernment 
efficient  as  an  instrument  for  protecting  the  rights  of 
labor  within  its  province,  and  therefore  to  secure  and  enforce 
judicial  decisions  which  would  permit  us  to  make  this  desire 
effective.  Not  only  some  of  the  Federal  indices,  but  some 
of  the  State  courts  invoked  the  Constitution  in  a  spirit 
of  the  narrowest  legalistic  obstruction  to  prevent  the  Gov- 


504     THi:()DORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUT0BI0GRA1>HY 

ernmeul  from  acting  in  defcnst-  of  labor  on  inter-State  rail- 
ways.    In  effect,  these  judges  took  the  view  that  while  Con- 
gress had  complete  power  as  regards  the  goods  transported 
by   vhe   railwajs,  and  could  protect  wealthy  or  well-to-do 
owne-s  of  these  goods,  yet  that  it  had  no  power  to  protect 
the   lives  of  the   men   engaged   in   transporting  the  goods. 
Such  judges   freely   issued   injunctions  to  prevent  the  ob- 
struction of  traffic  in  the  interest  of  the  property  owners,  but 
declared  unconstitutional  the  action  of  the  Government  in 
seeking  to  safeguard  the  men,  and  the  families  of  the  men, 
without  whose  labor  the  traffic  could  not  take  place.     It 
was  an  instance  of  the  largely  unconscious  way  in  which  the 
courts    had   been    twisted    into   the   exaltation   of   property 
rights   over   human    rights,   and   the   subordination   of   the 
welfare  of  the  laborer  when  compared  with  the  profit  of  the 
man  for  whom  he  labored.     By  what  I  fear  my  conservative 
friends  regarded  as  frightfully  aggressive  missionary  work, 
which    included    some    uncommonly    plain    speaking   as    to 
certain  unjust  and  anti-social  judicial  decisions,  we  succeeded 
in  largely,  but  by  no  means  altogether,  correcting  this  view, 
at  least  so  far  as  the  best  and  most  enlightened  judges  were 
concerned. 

\'ery  much  tlie  most  important  action  I  took  as  regards 
labor  had  nothing  to  dt)  with  legislation,  and  represented 
executive  action  which  was  not  required  by  the  Constitu- 
tion. It  illustrated  as  well  as  anything  that  I  did  the  theory 
which  I  have  called  the  Jackson-Lincoln  theory  of  the  Presi- 
dency ;  that  is,  that  occasionally  great  national  crises 
arise  which  call  for  immediate  and  vigorous  executive  action, 
and  that  in  such  cases  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President  to 
act  upon  the  theory  that  he  is  the  steward  of  the  people, 
and  that  the  proper  attitude  for  him  to  take  is  that  he  is 
bound  to  assume  that  he  has  the  legal  right  to  do  whatever 
the  needs  of  the  people  demand,  unless  the  Constitution  or 
the  laws  explicitly  forbid  him  to  do  it. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  i(>02  a  universal  strike  began  in 
the  aiitluaciti'  regions.  Thr  iiiiiuts  and  the  operators 
became  tleeply  i-inbittered,  and  tlu'  strike  \vent()n  through- 
out the  sunmier  and  the  early  fall  without  any  sign  of  reach- 


SOCIAL  AND    IXDUSTRIAL  JUSTICF: 


SOS 


ing  an  end,  and  with  almost  complete  stoppage  of  mining. 
In  many  cities,  especially  in  the  East,  the  heating  apparatus 
is  designed  for  anthracite,  so  that  the  bituminous  coal  is 
only  a  very  partial  substitute.  Moreover,  in  many  regions, 
even  in  farmhouses,  many  of  the  provisions  are  for  burn- 
ing coal  and  not  wood.  In  consequence,  the  coal  famine 
became  a  National  menace  as  the  winter  approached.  In 
most  big  cities  and  many  farming  districts  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi the  shortage  of  anthracite  tiireatened  calamity.  In 
the  populous  industrial  States,  from  Ohio  eastward,  it  was 
not  merely  calamity,  but  the  direst  disaster,  that  was 
threatened.  Ordinarily  conservative  men,  men  very  sensi- 
tive as  >')  the  riglits  of  propeity  under  normal  conditions, 
when  faced  by  this  crisis  felt,  quite  rightl)-,  that  there 
must  be  some  radical  action.  The  (lovernor  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  tile  Mayor  of  New  'N'ork  both  notified  me,  as 
the  cold  weatlier  came  on,  that  if  the  coal  famine  continued 
the  misery  throughout  the  Northeast,  and  especially  in  the 
great  cities,  would  become  appalling,  and  the  consequent 
public  disorder  so  great  that  frightful  consequences  might 
follovv.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  situation  which 
confronted  Pennsylvania,  New  NOrk,  and  New  England, 
and  to  a  less  degree  tlu-  States  of  the  Middle  West,  in 
October,  1902,  was  quite  as  serious  as  if  they  had  been 
threatened  by  the  invasion  of  a  hostile  ami}  of  overwhelm- 
ing force. 

The  big  coal  opi'rators  had  banded  together,  a..d  positively 
refused  to  take  any  steps  looking  toward  an  accommodation. 
They  knew  that  the  suffering  among  the  miners  was  great; 
they  were  confident  that  if  order  were  kept,  and  nothing 
further  done  by  the  (lovernment,  tliey  would  win  ;  and  they 
refused  to  consider  that  the  public  had  any  rights  in  the 
matter.  The)'  were,  for  the  most  part,  men  of  unques- 
tionably good  private  life,  and  they  were  merel_\  taking  the 
extreme  individualistic  viiw  of  the  rights  of  propert\-  and 
the  freedom  of  individual  action  upheld  in  the  Itas.uz  fairt' 
political  economies.  The  niines  wri\-  in  tlu-  State  of  Pmns)  1- 
vania.  There  was  no  iluty  whati'xer  laid  upon  tne  b\  the 
Constitution  in  the  matter,  and  1  had  in  theory  no  pt)wer  to 


5o6      THKODORE   ROOSFA'KLT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

act  dircctlv  unless  the  (i()Vc'riK)r  of  IVnnsyryania  or  the 
Legislature',  if  it  were  in  session,  should  notify  me  that 
Pennsylvania  could  not  keep  order,  and  request  me  as  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  army  of  the  I'nited  States  to  inter- 
vene and  keep  order. 

As  long  as  I  could  avoid  interfering  I  did  so ;  but  1  directed 
the  head  of  the  Labor  Bureau,  Carroll  Wright,  to  make  a 
thorough  investigation  and  lay  the  facts  fully  before  me.     As 
September   passed   without    any    sign   of   weakening   either 
among  the  emplovers  or  the  striking  workmen,  the  situation 
became  so  grave  that  I  felt  I  would  have  to  try  to  dc)  some- 
thing.    The  thing  most   feasible  was  to  get  both   sides  to 
agree   to  a  Commission  of  Arbitration,  with   a   promise  to 
accept  its  findings;   the  miners  to  go  to  work  as  soon  as  the 
commission  was  appointed,  at  the  old  rate  ()f  wages.      To 
this  proposition  the  miners,  headed  by  John  Mitchell,  agreed, 
stipulating  only   that    I    should   have   power   to   name   the 
Commission.     The  operators,   however,   positively    refused. 
They  insisted   that    all    that   was   necessary  to   do   was   for 
the  State  to  keep  order,  using  the  militia  as  a  police  force  ;  al- 
though  both   they  and   the  miners  asked  me  to  intervene 
under  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Law,  each  side  requesting 
that  I   proceed  against   the  other,  and  bf)th  requests  being 

impossible.  .  c   i      u     u 

Finally,  on  October  :,  the  representatives  ot  both  the 
operators  and  the  miners  met  before  me,  in  pursuance  of  my 
request.  The  representatives  of  the  miners  included  as 
their  head  and  spokesman  John  Mitchell,  who  kept  his 
temper  admirably  and  showed  to  much  advantage.  The 
representatives  of  the  operators,  on  the  contrary,  came 
down  in  a  most  insolent  frame  of  mind,  refused  to  talk  of 
arbitration  or  other  accommodation  of  any  kind,  and  used 
language  that  was  insulting  to  the  miners  and  offensive  to  me. 
They  were  curiously  ignorant  of  the  popular  temper;  and 
when  thev  went  away  from  the  interview  they,  with  much 
pride,  gave  their  own  account  of  it  to  the  papers,  exulting 
in  the  fact  that  they  had  "turned  drnvn"  botii  the  miners 
and  the  President.  •         i    i 

I  refused  to  accept  the  rebuff,  however,  and  continued  the 


SOCIAL   ANM)    IN'DrSTRIAL  Jl  STICE 


507 


t'ffort  to  ^'c't  a'l  a^Tcfinc'iit  hftunii  the  operators  and  tlu' 
miners.  I  was  anxious  to  ^et  tliis  agreement,  because  it 
would  prevent  the  necessity  of  taking  the  extremely  drastic 
action  I  meditated,  and  which  is  hereinafter  described. 

Fortunately,  this  time  we  were  successful.  Vet  we  were 
on  the  verge  of  failure,  because  of  self-willed  obstinacy  on 
the  part  of  the  operators.  This  obstinac)'  was  utt  .ly 
silly  from  their  own  standpoint,  and  well-nigh  criminal  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  people  at  large.  The  miners  pro- 
posed that  I  should  name  the  Commission,  and  that  if  I 
put  on  a  represeiitative  of  the  employing  class  I  should  also 
put  on  a  labor  union  man.  The  operators  positively  de- 
clined to  accept  the  suggestion.  They  insisted  upon  my 
naming  a  Commission  of  only  five  men,  and  specified  the 
qualifications  these  men  should  have,  carefully  choosing 
these  qualifications  so  as  to  exclude  those  whom  it  had  leaked 
out  I  was  thinking  of  appointing,  including  ex-Prcsident 
Cleveland.  They  made  the  condition  that  I  was  to  appoint 
one  officer  of  the  engineer  corps  of  the  army  or  navy,  one 
man  with  experience  of  mining,  one  "man  of  promiiience," 
"eminent  as  a  sociologist,"  one  Federal  judge  of  the  Eastern 
District  of  Pennsylvania,  and  one  mining  engineer. 

They  positively  refused  to  have  me  appoint  any  represen- 
tative of  labor,  or  to  put  on  an  extra  man.  I  was  desirous 
of  putting  on  the  extra  man,  because  Mitchell  and  the 
other  leaders  of  the  miners  liad  urged  me  to  appoint  some 
high  Catholic  ecclesiastic.  Most  of  the  miners  were  Cath- 
olics, and  Mitchell  and  the  leaders  were  very  anxious  to 
secure  peaceful  acquiescence  by  the  miners  in  an\'  decision 
rendered,  and  they  felt  that  their  hands  would  be  strength- 
ened if  such  an  appointment  were  made.  They  also,  quite 
properly,  insisted  that  there  should  be  one  representative 
of  labor  on  the  Commission,  as  all  of  the  others  represented 
the  propertied  classes.  The  operators,  however,  absolutely 
refused  to  acquiesce  in  the  appointment  of  any  represen- 
tative of  labor,  and  also  announced  that  they  would  refuse 
to  accept  a  sixth  man  on  the  Commission  ;  although  they 
spoke  much  less  decidedly  on  this  point.  The  labor  men 
left  everything  in  my  hands. 


:os 


IHKODORK    UOOSKVKl.T      AX   .MTOBIOCRAPIIV 


Thr  tiiKil  innfiTciuis  with  the  ivpivsi-iitalivi  ^  <'f  ihfoprra- 
tMi>  took  phui'  ill  mv  rooin>  on  ihr  rvniin^  ol  (KtolHT  15. 
Hour  aftir  iioiir  wiMil  by  wiiik-  1  (.■iKk-avoird  to  make  the 
operators  through  their  representatives  see  that  the  country 
would  not  tolerate  their  insisting  upon  such  conditions; 
but  in  vain.  The  two  representatives  of  tlie  operators  were 
Robert  Bacon  and  Ck-orge  W.  Perkins.  They  w^re  entirely 
reasonable.  But  the  operators  themselves  were  entireh'  un- 
reasonable. T'  V  had  worked  themselves  into  a  frame  of 
mind  where  the\  were  prepared  to  sacrifice  everything  and 
see  civil  war  in  the  country  rather  than  back  down  and  ac- 
quiesce in  the  appointment  of  a  representative  of  labor. 
It  looked  as  if  a  deadlock  were  inevitable. 

Then,    suddenly,    after    about    two    hours'    argument,    it 
dawned  on  me  that  thev  were  not   objecting  to  the  thing, 
but   to   the   name.      I    found   that    they  did    not    mmd   my 
appointing  any  man,  whether  he  was  a    labor  man  or  not, 
so  long  as  he  was  not  appointed  as  a   labor  man,  or  as  a 
representative  of  labor;   they  did  not  object  to  my  exercising 
anv  latitude   I   chose  in   the  appointments  so  long   as  they 
we're  made  under  the  headings  the\  had  given.      I  shall  never 
forget   the  mixture  of  relief  and  amusement    1   felt   when   I 
thoroughlv  grasped  the  fact  that  while  they  would  heroicallv 
submit  to"  anarchv  rather  than  have  Tweedledum,  yet  if    I 
would  call  it  Tweedledee  they  would  accept  it  with  rapture  ; 
it  gave  me  an  illuminating  glimpse  into  one  corner  of  the 
mighty   brains  of  these  "captains  of  industry."      In  order 
to  carry  the  great  and  vital  point  and  secure  agreeinent  by 
both  parties,  all  that   was  m'cessar\    for  me   to  do    was   to 
commit  a  technical  and  nominal  absurdity  with    a    solemn 
face.     This   I   gladlv  did.      I   announced  at  once  that    I   ac- 
cepted   the    terms  'laid    down.      With    this    understanding, 
I    appointed  the  labor  man    1    had    all  along  had  in  view, 
Mr.  K.  K.  Clark,  the  head  of  the  Brotherho(>d  of    Railway 
Conductors,  calling  h-im  an  "eminent  sociologist"        a  term 
which  1  doubt  whether  he  had  ever  previously  heard.     He 
was  a  first-class  man,  whom  I  afterward  put  ow  the    Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission.      I  added  to  the    Arbitration 
Commission,  on  my  own  authority,  a  sixth  member,  in    the 


SOCIAL  AND    INinSTRlAI,  Jl  STICK 


509 


person  of  Bishop  Spaklinp,  a  Catholic  bishop,  of  IVoria,  111., 
one  of  the  very  best  men  to  be  found  in  the  entire  country. 
The  man  whom  the  operators  had  expected  me  to  appoint 
as  the  sociologist  was  Carroll  Wright  —who  really  was  an 
eminent  sociologist.  I  put  him  on  as  recorder  of  the  Com- 
mission, and  added  him  as  a 
seventh  member  as  soon  as 


the  Commission  got  fairly 
started.  In  publishing  the 
list  iif  ihf  Coinmissiitners, 
when  I  came  tn  Clark's  ap- 
pointment, 1  atlded  :  "As  a 
sociologist  the  {'resident 
assuming  that  for  tlu'  pui- 
poses  of  sucli  a  Commission, 
the  term  sociologist  means 
a  man  who  has  thought  and 
studied  deeply  on  social 
questions  and  has  practi- 
cally applied  his  knowl- 
edge." 

The  relief  of  the  whole 
country  was  so  great  that 
the  sudden  appearance  of 
the  head  of  the  iirother- 
hood  of  Railway  Conduct- 
ors as  an  "eminent  sociol- 
ogist" merely  furnished  material  for  puzzled  comment  on 
the  part  of  the  press.  It  was  a  most  admirable  Commission. 
It  did  a  noteworthy  work,  and  its  report  is  a  monument  in 
the  history  of  the  relations  of  labor  and  capital  in  this  coun- 
try. The  strike,  by  the  way,  brought  me  into  contact  with 
more  than  one  man  who  was  afterward  a  \alued  friend  and 
fellow-Worker.  On  the  suggestion  of  C'arrol!  Wright  I  ap- 
pointed as  assistant  reconlns  to  the  Commission  Charles  P. 
Neill,  whom  I  afterward  made  Labor  Commissioner,  to  suc- 
ceed Wright  himself,  and  Mr.  Ldward  A.  Mo>t'l<-\ .  Wilke>- 
Barre  was  the  center  of  the  strike;  and  the  man  in  \\  ilkes- 
Barrc  who  helped  me  most   was  father  Curran;  I  grew  to 


I  Mill  K  l"t  Kk\N. 


;io      TIIKODORK   ROOSKV  KLT- AN    AL  rUBKXJk;\PllY 


Ir  ., 


know  and  trust  and  bclicvi-  in  him,  and  throughout  my  term 
in  otRcc,  and  afterward,  he  was  not  only  my  stanch  friend, 
hut  one  of  the  men  by  whose  advice  and  counsel  1  profited 
most  in  matters  atTecting  the  welfare  of  the  miners  and  their 
families. 

1  was  ijreatly  relieved  at  the  result,  for  more  than  one 
reason.  Of  course,  first  and  foremost,  my  concern  was  to 
avert  a  frightful  calamity  to  the  I'nited  States.  In  the 
next  place  I  was  anxious  to  save  the  ^reat  coal  operators 
and  all  of  the  class  of  big  propertied  men,  of  which  they  were 
members,  from  the  dreadful  punishment  which  their  own 
folly  would  have  broujjht  on  them  if  I  had  not  acted  ;  and 
one  of  tlie  exasperating  things  was  that  they  were  so  blinded 
that  they  could  not  see  that  I  was  trying  to  save  them  from 
themselves  and  to  avert,  not  only  for  their  sakes,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  country,  the  excesses  which  would  have  been 
indulged  in  at  their  expense  if  they  had  longer  persisted 
in  their  conduct. 

The  great  Anthracite  Strike  of  i()OZ  left  an  indelible 
impress  upon  the  people  of  the  L'nited  States.  It  showed 
clearly  to  all  wise  and  far-seeing  men  that  the  labor 
problem  in  this  count r>-  had  entered  upon  a  new  phase. 
Industry  had  grown.  Great  financial  corporations,  doing 
a  nation-wide  and  even  a  world-wide  business,  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  smaller  concerns  of  an  earlier  time.  The  old 
familiar,  intimate  relations  between  employer  and  employee 
were  passing.  A  few  generations  before,  the  boss  had  known 
every  man  in  his  shop;  he  called  his  men  Bill,  Tom,  Dick, 
John;  he  inquired  after  their  wives  and  babies;  he  swapped 
jokes  and  stories  and  perhaps  a  bit  of  tobacco  with  them. 
In  the  small  establishment  there  had  been  a  friendly  human 
relationship  between  employer  and  employee. 

There  was  no  sucli  relation  between  the  great  railway 
magnates,  w^ho  controlled  the  anthracite  industry,  and  the 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  who  worked  in  their 
mines,  or  tin-  half  million  women  and  children  who  were 
dipendinl  upon  these  miners  for  their  daily  bread.  \'ery 
few  of  these  mine  workers  had  ever  seen,  for  instance, 
the  president  of  the  Reading  Railroad.      Had  they  seen  him 


SOCIAI,   AM)    INDIS'IKIAI,  jrSTICF.  511 

many  of  tlicin  could  iioi  haw  spokni  to  him,  f<.r  tens  of 
thousands  of  the-  mine  workirs  were  icciiit  iin!iii).'rants 
who  did  not  uiidtTstand  tlu-  laiiyuaKc  which  hv  spoke  and 
who  spoke  a  languajje  wliieh  he  could  not  understand. 

Aj,'ain,  a  few  generations  a>;o  an  American  workman  could 
have  saved  money,  ^'one  West  and  taken  up  a  homestead. 
Now  the  free  lands  were  ^one.      In  earlier  days  a  man  who 
bcKan  with  pick  and  shovel  iniKht  have  come  to  (.wn  a  mine. 
I  hat  outlet    too  was   now  closed,   as   re^'ards   the   immense 
majority,   and   few,   if  any,   of  the  one   hundred   and   fiftv 
thousand  mine  workers  could  ever  aspire  to  enter  the  small 
circle  of  men  who  held  in  their  ^rrasp  the  ^reat  anthracite 
industry.      The  majority  of  the  men   who  earned   wages  in 
the  coal   industry,   if  they   wished   to  progress  at   all,   were 
compelled  to  progress  not   by  ceasing  to  he  wage-earners, 
but  by  improving  the  conditions  under  which  all' the  wage- 
earners  in  all  the  industries  of  the  country  lived  and  worked, 
as  well,  of  course,  as  improving  their  own  iiidividual  etticieiicy! 
Another  change  which  had  come  about  as  a  result  of  the 
foregoing  was  a  crass  inequality  in  the  bargaining  relation 
between  the  employer  and  the  individual  emplovee  standing 
alone.     The  great  coal-mining  and  coal-carrving  companies 
which   employed   their   tens   of  thousands,  c'ould   easily  dis- 
pense with  the  services  of  any  particular  miner.     The  miner, 
on  the  other  hand,  however  expert,  could  not  dispense  with" 
the  companies.      He   needed   a  job;     his   wife  and   children 
would  starve  if  he  did  not  get  one.     What  the  miner  had  to 
sell        his  labor        was  a  perishable  commoditv  ;    the  labor 
of  to-day  -    if  not  sold  to-day       was  lost  forever.     More- 
over,  his  lab(,r  was   not   like   most   commodities  —  a   mere 
thing;  it  was  part  of  a  living,  breathing  human  being.     The 
\vorkman   saw,  and  all   citizens  who  gave  earnest  thought   to 
the  matter  saw,  that  the  labor  problem   was   not    only  an 
economic,  but  also  a  moral,  a  human  problem.      Individually 
tile  miners  were  impotent  when  they  sought  to  enter  a  wage- 
contract  with  the  great  companies;    they  could  make  fair 
terms  only  by   uniting  into   trade   unions   to   bargain   col- 
lectively.    The  men  were  forced  to  cooperate  to  secure  not 
only  their  economic,  but  their  simple  human  rights.     Thev, 


I'hKODORK    RoOSIAKI.r      AN   AITOBK K.RAPHY 


liUntlRi  uorknun.  ur,r  ...imihIK  .1  by  tin-  mi  y  o..ul.lio„s 
uiuUr  uhicli  tluv  liviil  t..  unit.'  in  umnns  d  tlu-ir  iiKlusliy 
,,r  iiadf,  aiul  tlusf  uiii.-ii-,  wcif  U^uud  \>>  Kn'W  in  size,  in 
strcnw'tli.  and  in  power  lor  ^'.mkI  and  evil  as  the  industries 
in  whieh  tlie  men  were  employed  v'lew  lart'er  and  larger. 

\  dein.aracv  can  be  such  in  fact  only  if  there  is  some  rou^h 
approximation  to  simihirity  in  stature  am-.n^'  the  men  cm- 
n.,sinvr  it.     Om'  of  us  can  deal  in  our  private  lives  with  liie 
KHM-cr    or     the    butcher    or    the    carpenter  or  ttie    c lucken 
raiser    or  if   we  are   the  urocer  or  carp.nter  or  butcher  or 
farmer,  we  can  deal  with  our  customers,  because  .7V  rtr,;  all 
of  about  thr  unit,'  sizr.      riurefore  a  simple  and  ,M.,,r  society 
can  exist  as  a  democracy  on  a  basis  of  sheer  individualism. 
But  a  rich  and  complex  industrial  society  cann<;t  so  i-xist  ; 
for  some  individuals,  and  especially  th..se  artificial  individ- 
uals called  corporations,  become  so  very  bi^  that  the  ordi- 
nary individual  is  utterly  dwarfed  beside  them,  and  cannot 
deal  with  them  on  terms  of  equality.      It   theretore  becomes 
necessary  for  these  ordi.iarv  individuals  to  combine  in  their 
turn    first  in  order  to  act  in  their  o.llectiye  capacity  through 
ihat'biirirest  ..f  all  combinati..ns  called  the  Covernment.  and 
second,  to  act,  also  in  their  .  wn  ..  if-defense,  throujjh  private 
combinations,  such  as  farmers'  associations  and  trade  unions. 
This  the  ^'i-eat  coal  operators  did  not  see.      I  liev  did  not 
see  that  their  properly  ri^'hts,  which  they  so  stoutly  defended, 
were  of  the  same  texture  as  were  the  human  rights,  winch 
they   so  l>lindly  and  h..tly  denied.     They  did  lu.t  see  that 
the' power  which  they  exercised  of  repiVNentnig  their  stock- 
holders was  of  the  same  texture  as  the  power  which  the  union 
leaders  demanded  of  representing  the  workmen,  who  had 
democratically   elected   them.     They   did   not   see   thatthe 
right  to  use  one's  property   as  one  will  can  he  maintained 
only   so  long  as   it    is  consistent    with   the   maintenance  ot 
certain   fundamental    human    rights,   of   the   rights   to   lite, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  or.  as  we  mav  restate 
them 'in  these  later  davs,  of  the  rights  of  the  worker  to  a 
Hying  wau'e,  t'>  reasonable  h'Hirs  of  labor,  to  decent  working 
and  fiving  conditions,  to  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  and 
industrial  representation,  —  in  short,  to  a  measure  of  indus- 


SOCIAL  AM)   INDISTRIAL  JISTIC 


513 


trial  democracy  and,  in  return  for  his  arduous  toil,  to  a  worthy 
and  decent  life  according  to  American  standards.  Still 
another  thing  these  great  business  leaders  did  not  see.  They 
did  not  see  that  both  their  interests  and  the  interests  of  the 
workers  must  be  accommodated,  and  if  need  be,  subordi- 
nated, to  the  fundamental  permanent  interests  of  the  whole 
community.  No  man  and  no  group  of  men  may  so  exercise 
their  rights  as  to  deprive  the  nation  of  the  things  which  are 
necessary  and  vital  to  the  common  life.  A  strike  which  ties 
up  the  coal  supplies  of  a  whole  section  is  a  strike  invested 
with  a  public  interest. 

So  great  was  that  public  interest  in  the  Coal  Strike  of  1902, 
so  deeply  and  strongly  did  I  feel  the  wave  of  indignation 
which  swept  over  the  whole  country  that  had  I  not  succeeded 
in  my  efforts  to  induce  the  operators  to  listen  to  reason,  I 
should  reluctantly  but  none  the  less  decisively  have  taken  a 
step  which  would  have  brought  down  upon  my  head  the 
execrations  of  many  of  "the  captains  of  industry,"  as  well 
as  of  sundry"  respectable"  newspapers  who  dutifully  take 
their  cue  from  them.  As  a  man  should  be  judged  by  his 
intentions  as  well  as  by  his  actions,  I  will  give  here  the  story 
of  the  intervention  that  never  happened. 

While  the  coal  operators  were  exulting  over  the  fact  that 
they  had  "turned  down"  the  miners  and  the  President,  there 
arose  in  all  parts  of  the  country  an  outburst  of  wrath  so 
universal  that  even  so  naturally  conservative  a  man 
as  Grover  Cleveland  wrote  to  me,  expressing  his  sympathy 
with  the  course  I  was  following,  his  indignation  at  the 
conduct  of  the  operators,  and  his  hope  that  I  would  devise 
some  method  of  effective  action.  In  my  own  mind  I  was 
already  planning  eflFective  action;  but  it  was  of  a  very 
drastic  character,  and  I  did  not  wish  to  take  it  until  the  fail- 
ure of  all  ot^her  expedients  had  rendered  it  necessary.  Above 
all,  I  did  not  wish  to  talk  about  it  until  and  unless  I 
actually  acted.  I  had  definitely  determined  that  some- 
how or  other  act  I  would,  that  somehow  or  other  the  coal 
famine  should  be  broken.  To  accomplish  this  end  it  was 
necessary  that  the  mines  should  be  run,  an  if  I  could  get  no 
voluntary  agreement  between  the  contending  sides,  that  an 


5.4     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Arbitration  Commission  should  be  appointed  which  would 
command  such  public  confidence  as  to  enable  me  without 
too  much  difficulty,  to  enforce  its  terms  upon  both  parties. 
Ex-President  Cleveland's  letter  not  merely  gratified  me, 
but  gave  me  the  chance  to  secure  him  as  head  of  the  Arbi- 
tration Commission.  1  at  once  wrote  him  stating  that  I 
would  very  probably  have  to  appoint  an  Arbitration  Com- 
mission or  Investigating  Commission  to  look  into  the  matter 
and  decide  on  the  rights  of  the  case,  whether  or  not  the 
operators  asked  for  or  agreed  to  abide  by  the  decisions 
of  such  a  Commission;  and  that  I  would  ask  him  to  accept 
the  chief  place  on  the  Commission.  He  answered  that  he 
would  do  so.  I  picked  out  several  first-class  men  for  other 
positions  on  the  Commission.  •      .     j      n    a 

Meanwhile    the  (Jovernor  of    Pennsylvania    had   all   the 
Pennsylvania    militia    in    the    anthracite    region,    although 
without  any  eflFect  upon  the  resumption  of  mining,      [he 
method  of  action  upon  which  I  had  determined  in  the  last 
resort  was  to  get  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  to  ask  me 
to  keep  order.     Then  I  would  put  in  the  army  under  the 
command  of  some  first-rate  general.     I  would  instruct  this 
general  to  keep  absolute  order,  taking  any  steps  whatever 
that  were  necessary  to  prevent  interference  by  the  strikers 
or  their  sympathizers  with  men  who  wanted  to  work.     1 
would  also  instruct  him  to  dispossess  the  operators  and  run 
the  mines  as  a  receiver  until  such  time  as  the  Commission 
might  make  its  report,  and  until  I,  as  President,  might  issue 
further  orders  in  view  of  this  report.     I  had  to  find  a  man 
who    possessed    the    necessary    good   sense,  judgment,    and 
nerve  to  act  in  such  event.     He  was  ready  to  hand  m  the 
person  of  Major-General  Schofield.     I  sent  for  lum,  telling 
him  that  if  I  had  to  make  use  of  him  it  vvould  be  because  the 
crisis  was  only  less  serious  than  that  of  the  Civil  War,  that 
the  action  taken  would  be  practically  a  war  measure,  and 
that  if  I  sent  him  he  must  act  in  a  purely  military  capacity 
under  me  as  commander-in-chief,  paying  no  heed  to  any 
authority,   judicial  <^r  otherwise,  except  mine.     He  was  a 
fine  fellow -a  most  respectable-looking  old  boy,  with  side 
whiskers  and  a  black  skull-cap,  without  any  of  the  outward 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


SIS 


aspect  of  the  conventional  military  dictator ;  but  in  both  nerve 
and  judgment  he  was  all  right,  and  he  answered  quietly  that 
if  I  gave  the  order  he  would  take  possession  of  the  mines, 
and  would  guarantee  to  open  them  and  to  run  them  without 
permitting  any  interference  either  by  the  owners  or  the 
strikers  or  anybody  else,  so  long  as  I  told  him  to  stay,  I  then 
saw  Senator  Quay,  who,  like  every  other  responsible  man  in 
high  position,  was  greatly  wrought  up  over  the  condition  of 
things.  I  told  him  that  he  need  be  under  no  alarm  as  to 
the  problem  not  being  solved,  that  I  was  going  to  make 
another  effort  to  get  the  operators  and  miners  to  come  to- 
gether, but  that  I  would  solve  the  problem  in  any  event 
and  get  coal ;  that,  however,  I  did  not  wish  to  tell  him  any- 
thing of  the  details  of  my  intention,  but  merely  to  have  him 
arrange  that  whenever  i  gave  the  word  the  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania  s'ould  request  me  to  intervene ;  that  when 
this  was  done  vould  be  responsible  for  all  that  followed, 
and  would  guarantee  that  the  coal  famine  would  end  forth- 
with. The  Senator  madt  no  inquiry  or  comment,  and 
merely  told  me  that  he  in  his  turn  would  guarantee  that 
the  Governor  would  request  my  intervention  the  minute 
I  asked  that  the  request  be  made. 

These  negotiations  were  conducted  with  the  utmost 
secrecy.  General  Schofield  being  the  only  man  who  knew 
exactly  what  my  plan  was,  and  Senator  Quay,  two  members 
of  my  Cabinet,  and  ex-President  Cleveland  and  the  other 
men  whom  I  proposed  to  put  on  the  Commission,  the  only 
other  men  who  knew  that  I  had  a  plan.  As  I  have  above 
outlined,  my  efforts  to  bring  about  an  agreement  between  the 
operators  and  miners  were  finally  successful.  I  was  glad  not 
to  have  to  take  possession  of  the  mines  on  my  own  initiative 
by  means  of  General  Schofield  and  the  regulars.  I  was  all 
ready  to  act,  and  would  have  done  so  without  the  slightest 
hesitation  or  a  moment's  delay  if  the  negotiations  had  fallen 
through.  And  my  action  would  have  been  entirely  effective. 
But  it  is  never  well  to  take  drastic  action  if  the  result  can 
be  achieved  with  equal  efficiency  in  less  drastic  fashion ; 
and,  although  this  was  a  mintM  consideration,  I  was  per- 
sonally saved  a  good  deal  of  future  trouble  by  being  able 


h     'i 

S  it 


.  r 


Si6      THEODORE  ROOSEVELT— AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


to  avoid  this  drastic  action.  At  the  time  I  should  have 
been  almost  unanimously  supported.  With  the  famine 
upon  them  the  people  would  not  have  tolerated  any  conduct 
that  would  have  thwarted  what  I  was  doing.  Probably  no 
man  in  Congress,  and  no  man  in  the  Pennsylvania  State 
Legislature,  would  have  raised  his  voice  against  me.  Al- 
though there  would  have  been  plenty  of  muttering,  nothing 
would  have  been  done  to  interfere  with  the  solution  of  the 
problem  which  I  had  devised,  until  the  solution  teas  accom- 
plished and  the  problem  ceased  to  be  a  problem.  Once  this 
was  done,  and  when  people  were  no  longer  afraid  of  a  coal 
famine,  and  began  to  forget  that  they  ever  had  been  afraid 
of  it,  and  to  be  indifferent  as  regards  the  consequences  to 
those  who  put  an  end  to  it,  then  my  enemies  would  have 
plucked  up  heart  and  begun  a  campaign  against  me.  I 
doubt  if  they  could  have  accomplished  much  anyway,  for 
the  only  effective  remedy  against  me  would  have  been  im- 
peachment, and  that  they  would  not  have  ventured  to  try.' 

'  One  of  my  appointees  on  the  Anthracite  Strike  Commission  was  Judge  (Jeorpe 
Ciray,  of  Delaware,  a  Democrat  whose  standint;  in  tlic  country  was  second  only  to 
that  of  Cirover  Cleveland.     A  year  later  he  commented  on  my  .iction  as  follows: 

"1  have  no  hesitation  in  sayiny  that  the  President  of  the  I'nited  Slates  was  ron- 
friinted  in  October,  li>02,  by  the  existence  of  a  crisis  more  >rrave  and  threatening 
than  any  that  had  occurred  since  the  Civil  War.  1  mean  that  the  cessation  of  mining 
in  the  anthracite  country,  brought  about  by  the  dispute  between  the  miners  and 
those  who  controlled  the  greatest  natural  monopoly  in  this  country  and  perhaps  in 
the  world,  had  brought  upon  more  than  one-half  of  the  .\nierican  people  a  condition 
of  deprivation  of  one  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  the  probable  continuance  of  the 
dispute  threatened  not  only  the  comfort  and  health,  but  the  safety  and  giKKl  order, 
of  the  nation.  Me  was  without  legal  or  constitutional  power  to  interfere,  but  his 
position  as  President  of  the  United  States  iiave  him  an  influence,  a  leadership,  a.s 
first  citizen  of  the  republic,  that  enabled  him  to  appeal  to  the  patriotism  and  good 
sense  of  the  parties  to  the  controversy  and  to  place  upon  them  the  moial  coercion 
of  public  opinion  to  agree  to  an  arbitrament  of  the  strike  then  existing  and  threaten- 
ing consequences  so  direful  to  the  whole  cf)untry.  He  acted  promptly  and  coura- 
geously, and  in  so  doing  averted  the  dangers  to  which  I  have  alluded. 

"So  far  from  interferini;  or  infringing  upon  property  rights,  the  President's 
action  tended  to  conserve  them.  The  peculiar  situation,  as  regards  the  anthracite 
coal  interest,  was  that  they  controlled  a  natural  monopoly  nf  a  product  necessary 
to  the  comfort  and  to  the  very  life  of  a  large  portion  of  the  pople.  .\  prolonged 
deprivation  of  the  enjoyment  of  this  necessary  of  life  would  have  tended  to  precipi- 
tate an  attack  upon  these  property  rights  of  which  you  speak;  for,  after  all,  it  is 
vain  to  deny  that  this  property,  so  peculiar  in  its  conditions,  and  which  is  properly 


spoken  of  as  a  natiir.T!  mom 


afTcrtrd  with  s  puh'ic  interest. 


"I  do  not  think  that  any  President  ever  acted  more  wLsely,  courageously  or 
promptly  in  a  national  crisis.  Mr.  Roosevelt  deserves  unstinted  praise  for  what  he 
did." 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


S17 


They  would  doubtless  have  acted  precisely  as  they  acted 
as  regards  the  acquisition  of  the  Panama  Canal  Zone  in 
1903,  and  the  stoppage  of  the  panic  of  1907  by  my  action  in 
the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company  matter.  Nothing 
could  have  made  the  American  people  surrender  the  canal 
zone.  Bui  after  it  was  an  accomplished  fact,  and  the  canal 
was  under  way,  then  they  settled  down  to  comfortable 
acceptance  of  the  accomplished  fact,  and  as  their  own  inter- 
ests were  no  longer  in  jeopardy,  they  paid  no  heed  to  the  men 
who  attacked  r  ?  because  of  what  I  had  done  —  and  also 
continue  to  atta.  c  me,  although  they  are  exceedingly  careful 
not  to  propose  tc  right  the  "wrong,"  in  the  only  proper  way 
if  it  really  was  a  wrong,  by  replacing  the  old  Republic  of 
Panama  under  the  tyranny  of  Colombia  and  giving  Colombia 
sole  or  joint  ownership  of  the  canal  itself.  In  the  case  of 
the  panic  of  1907  (as  in  the  case  of  Panama),  what  I  did  was 
not  only  done  openly,  but  depended  for  its  effect  upon  being 
done  openly  and  with  the  widest  advertisement.  Nobody 
in  Congress  ventured  to  make  an  objection  at  the  time.  No 
serious  leader  outside  made  any  objection.  The  one  concern 
of  ^\crybody  was  to  stop  the  panic,  and  everybody  was  over- 
joyed that  I  was  willing  to  take  the  responsibility  of  stopping 
it  upon  my  own  shoulders.  But  a  few  months  afterward, 
the  panic  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  People  forgot  the  fright- 
ful condition  of  alarm  in  which  they  had  been.  They  no 
longer  had  a  personal  interest  in  preventing  any  interference 
with  the  stoppage  of  the  panic.  Then  the  men  who  had  not 
dared  to  raise  their  voices  until  all  danger  was  past  came 
bravely  forth  from  their  hiding  places  and  denounced  the 
action  which  had  saved  them.  They  had  kept  a  hushed 
silence  when  there  was  danger;  they  made  clamorous  outcry 
when  there  was  safety  in  doing  so. 

Just  the  same  course  would  have  been  followed  in  con- 
nection with  the  Anthracite  Coal  Strike  if  I  had  been 
obliged  to  act  in  the  fashion  I  intended  to  act  had  I  failed  to 
secure  a  voluntary  agreement  between  the  miners  and  the 
operators.  Even  as  it  was,  my  action  was  remembered  with 
rancor  by  the  heads  of  the  great  monied  interests;  and  as 
time  went  by  was  assailed  with  constantly  increasing  vigor 


I 


Si8      THEODORK   ROOSEVl- LT- AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

by  the  iK'vvspapcrs  tlu-sc  men  controlled.  Had  I  been 
forced  to  take  possession  of  the  mines,  these  men  and  the 
politicians  hostile  to  me  would  have  waited  until  the  popular 
alarm  was  over  and  the  popular  needs  met,  just  as  they 
waited  in  the  case  of  the  Tei  nessec  Coal  and  Iron  Company  ; 
and  then  they  would  have  attacked  me  precisely  as  they  did 
attack  me  as  regards  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company. 

Of  course,  in  labor  controversies  it  was  not  always 
possible  to  champion  the  cause  of  the  workers,  because  in 
many  cases  strikes  were  called  which  were  utterly  unwar- 
ranted and  were  fijught  by  methods  which  cannot  be  too 
harshly  condemned.  No  straightforward  man  can  believe, 
and  no  fearless  man  will  .issert,  that  a  trade  union  is  always 
right.  That  man  is  an  unworthy  public  servant  who  by 
speech  (jr  silence,  by  direct  statement  or  cowardly  evasion, 
invariably  throws  the  weight  of  his  influence  on  the  side  of 
th«  :.rade  union,  whether  it  is  right  or  wrong.  It  has 
occisionally  been  my  duty  to  give  utterance  to  the  feelings 
of  all  rif  ht  thinking  men  by  expressing  the  most  emphatic 
disapproval  of  unwise  or  even  immoral  actions  by  represen- 
tatives of  labor.  The  man  is  no  true  democrat,  and  if  an 
American,  is  unworthy  of  the  traditions  of  his  country  who, 
in  problems  calling  for  the  exercise  of  a  moral  judgment, 
fails  to  take  his  stand  on  conduct  and  not  on  class.  There  are 
good  and  bad  wage-workers  just  as  there  are  good  and  bad 
employers,  and  good  and  bad  men  of  small  means  and  of 
large  means  alike. 

But  a  willingness  to  do  equal  and  exact  justice  to  all 
citizens,  irrespective  of  race,  creed,  section  or  economic  in- 
terest and  position,  does  i.ot  imply  a  failure  to  recognize  the 
enormous  economic,  political  and  moral  possibilities  of  the 
trade  union,  just  as  democratic  government  cannot  be 
condemned  because  of  errors  and  even  crimes  committed 
by  men  democratically  elected,  so  trade-unionism  must  not 
be  condemned  because  of  errors  or  crimes  of  occasional 
trade-union  leaders.  The  probleni  lies  deeper.  While  we 
must  repress  all  illegalities  and  discourage  all  immoralities, 
whether  of  labor  organizations  or  of  corpc^ations,  we  niust 
recognize  thr-  fact  that  to-day  the  organization  of  labor  into 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


S19 


trade  unions  and  federations  is  necessary,  is  beneficent, 
and  is  one  of  the  greatest  possible  agencies  in  the  attainment 
of  a  true  industrial,  as  well  as  a  true  political,  democracy 
in  the  United  States. 

This  is  a  fact  which  many  well-intentioned  people  even 
to-day  do  not  understand.  They  do  not  understand  that 
the  labor  problem  is  a  human  and  a  moral  as  well  as  an  eco- 
nomic problem  ;  that  a  fall  in  wages,  an  increase  in  hours,  a 
deterioration  of  labor  conditions  mean  wholesale  moral  as 
well  as  economic  degeneration,  and  the  needless  sacrific 
of  human  lives  and  human  happiness,  while  a  rise  of  wages,  a 
lessening  of  hours,  a  bettering  of  conditions,  mean  an 
intellectual,  moral  and  social  uplift  of  millions  of  American 
men  and  women.  There  are  employers  to-day  who,  like  the 
great  coal  operators,  speak  as  though  they  were  lords  of  these 
countless  armies  of  Americans,  who  toil  in  factory,  in  shop, 
in  mill  and  in  the  dark  places  under  the  earth.  They 
fail  to  see  that  all  these  men  have  the  right  and  the  duty  to 
combine  to  protect  themselves  and  their  families  from  want 
and  degradation.  They  fail  to  see  that  the  Nation  and  the 
Government,  within  the  range  of  fair  play  and  a  just  ad- 
ministration of  the  law,  must  inevitably  sympathize  with 
the  men  who  have  nothing  but  their  wages,  with  the  men 
who  are  struggling  for  a  decent  life,  as  opposed  to  men, 
however  honorable,  who  are  merely  fighting  for  larger  profits 
and  an  autocratic  control  of  big  business.  Each  man 
should  have  all  he  earns,  whether  by  brain  or  body ;  and  the 
director,  the  great  industrial  leader,  is  one  of  the  greatest 
of  earners,  and  should  Ivave  a  proportional  reward;  but  no 
man  should  live  on  the  earnings  of  another,  and  there  should 
not  be  too  gross  inequality  between  service  and  reward. 

There  are  many  men  to-day,  men  of  integrity  and  intelli- 
gence, who  honestly  believe  that  we  must  go  back  to  the  labor 
conditions  of  half  a  century  ago.  They  are  opposed  to  trade 
unions,  root  and  branch.  They  note  the  unworthy  conduct 
of  many  labor  leaders,  they  find  instances  of  bad  work  by 
union  men,  of  a  voluntary  restriction  of  output,  of  vexa- 
tious and  violent  strikes,  of  jurisdictional  disputes  between 
unions  which  often  disastrously  involve  the  best  intentioned 


S20    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  — AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


and  fairest  of  employers.  All  these  things  occur  and 
should  be  repressed.  But  the  same  critic  of  the  trade  union 
might  find  equal  cause  of  complaint  against  individual 
employers  of  labor,  or  even  against  great  associations  of 
manufacturers.  He  might  find  many  instances  of  an  un- 
warranted cutting  of  wages,  of  flagrant  violations  of  factory 
laws  and  tenement  house  laws,  of  the  deliberate  and  sys- 
tematic cheating  of  employees  by  means  of  truck  stores,  of 
the  speeding  up  of  work  to  a  point  which  is  fatal  to  the  health 
of  the  workman,  of  the  sweating  of  foreign-born  workers,  of 
the  drafting  of  feeble  little  children  into  dusty  workshops,  of 
black-listing,  of  putting  spies  into  union  meetings  and  of 
the  employment  in  strike  times  of  vicious  and  desperate 
ruflFians,  who  are  neither  better  nor  worse  than  are  the  thugs 
who  are  occasionally  employed  by  unions  under  the  sinister 
name,  "entertainment  committees."  I  believe  that  the 
overwhelming  majority,  both  of  workmen  and  of  employers, 
are  law-abiding,  peaceful,  and  honorable  citizens,  and  I  do 
not  think  that  it  is  just  to  lay  up  the  errors  and  wrongs  of 
individuals  to  the  entire  group  to  which  they  belong.  I  also 
think  —  and  this  is  a  belief  which  has  been  borne  upon  me 
through  many  years  of  practical  experience  —  that  the 
trade  union  is  growing  constantly  in  wisdom  as  well  as  in 
power,  and  is  becoming  one  of  the  most  efficient  agencies 
toward  the  solution  of  our  industrial  problems,  the  elimina- 
tion of  poverty  and  of  industrial  disease  and  accidents,  the 
lessening  of  unemployment,  the  achievement  of  industrial 
democracy  and  the  attainment  of  a  larger  measure  of  social 
and  industrial  justice. 

If  I  were  a  factory  employee,  a  workman  on  the  railroads 
or  a  wage-earner  of  any  sort,  I  would  undoubtedly  join  the 
union  of  my  trade.  If  I  disapproved  of  its  policy,  I  would 
join  in  order  to  fight  that  policy ;  if  the  union  leaders  were 
dishonest,  I  would  join  in  order  to  put  them  out.  I  believe 
in  the  union  and  I  believe  that  all  men  who  are  benefited 
by  the  union  are  morally  bound  to  help  to  the  extent  of  their 
power  in  the  common  interests  advanced  by  the  union. 
Nevertheless,  irrespective  of  whether  a  man  should  or  should 
not,  and  does  or  does  not,  join  the  union  of  his  trade,  all 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


521 


the  rights,  privileges  and  immunities  f)f  that  man  as  an 
American  and  as  a  citizen  should  be  safegurded  and  upheld 
by  the  law.  We  dare  not  make  an  outlaw  of  any  individual 
or  any  group,  whatever  his  or  its  opinions  or  professions. 
The  non-unionist,  like  the  unionist,  must  be  protected  in  all 
his  legal  rights  by  the  full  weight  and  power  of  the  law. 

This  question  came  up  before  me  in  the  shape  of  the  right 
of  a  non-union  printer  named  Miller  to  hold  his  position  in 
the  Government  Printing  Office.  As  I  said  before,  I  believe 
in  trade  unions.  I  always  prefer  to  see  a  union  shop.  But 
my  private  preferences  cannot  control  my  public  actions. 
The  Government  can  recognize  neither  union  men  nor  nf)n- 
union  men  as  such,  and  is  bound  to  treat  both  exactly  alike. 
In  the  Government  Printing  Office  not  many  months  prior 
to  the  opening  of  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1904,  when  I 
was  up  for  reelection,  I  discovered  that  a  man  had  been  dis- 
missed because  he  did  not  belong  to  the  union.  I  reinstated 
him.  Mr.  Gompers,  the  President  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,  with  various  members  of  the  executive  council 
of  that  body,  called  upon  me  to  protest  on  September  29, 
1903,  and  I  answered  them  as  follows : 

"I  thank  you  and  your  committee  for  your  courtesy,  and 
I  appreciate  the  opportunity  to  meet  with  you.  It  will  al- 
ways be  a  pleasure  to  sec  you  or  any  representatives  of  your 
organizations  or  of  your  Federation  as  a  whole. 

"As  regards  the  \Iiller  case,  I  have  little  to  add  to  what 
I  have  already  said.  In  dealing  with  it  I  ask  you  to  re- 
member that  I  am  dealing  purely  with  the  relation  of  the 
Government  to  its  employees.  I  must  govern  my  action  by 
the  laws  of  the  land,  which  I  am  sworn  to  administer,  and 
which  differentiate  any  case  in  which  the  Ciovernment  of 
the  United  States  is  a  party  from  all  other  cases  whatsoever. 
These  laws  are  enacted  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  people, 
and  cannot  and  must  not  be  construed  as  permitting  dis- 
crimination against  some  of  the  people.  I  am  President  of 
all  the  people  of  the  United  States,  without  regard  to  creed, 
color,  birthplace,  occupation  or  social  condition.  My  aim 
is  to  do  equal  and  exact  justice  as  among  them  all.  In  the 
employment  and  dismissal  of  men  in  the  Government  service 


iJupyrigbt  by  Underwood  and  Underwood 

The  Coal  Miners. 


SOCIAL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


523 


I  can  no  more  recognize  the  fact  that  a  man  does  or  docs  not 
belong  to  a  union  as  being  for  or  against  him  than  I  can  rec- 
ognize the  fact  that  he  is  a  Protestant  or  a  Catholic,  a  Jew 
or  a  Gentile,  as  being  for  or  against  him. 

"In  the  communications  sent  mc  by  various  labor  or- 
ganizations protesting  against  the  retention  of  Miller  in 
the  (jovernment  Printing  Office,  the  grounds  alleged  are 
twofold:  I,  that  he  is  a  non-union  man;  2,  that  he  is  not 
personally  fit.  The  question  of  his  personal  fitness  is  one 
to  be  settled  in  the  routine  of  administrative  detail,  and 
caiinot  be  allowed  to  conflict  with  or  to  complicate  the  larger 
question  of  governmental  discrimination  for  or  against  him 
or  any  other  man  because  he  is  or  is  not  a  member  of  a  union. 
This  is  the  only  question  now  before  mc  for  decision;  and 
as  to  this  my  decision  is  final." 

Because  of  things  I  have  done  on  behalf  of  justice  to  the 
workingman,  I  have  often  been  called  a  Socialist.  Usually 
I  have  not  taken  the  trouble  even  to  notice  the  epithet. 
I  am  not  afraid  of  names,  and  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  fear 
to  do  what  is  right  because  some  one  else  will  confound 
me  with  partisans  with  whose  principles  I  am  not  in  accord. 
Moreover,  I  know  that  many  American  Socialists  are  high- 
minded  and  honorable  citizens,  who  in  reality  are  merely 
radical  social  reformers.  They  are  oppressed  by  the  bru- 
talities and  industrial  injustices  which  we  see  everywhere 
about  us.  When  I  recall  how  often  I  have  seen  Socialists 
and  ardent  non-Socialists  working  side  by  side  for  some 
specific  measure  of  social  or  industrial  reform,  and  how  I 
have  found  opposed  to  them  on  the  side  of  privilege  many 
shrill  reactionaries  who  insist  on  calling  all  reformers  Social- 
ists, I  refuse  to  be  panic-stricken  by  having  this  title  mis- 
takenly applied  to  me. 

None  the  less,  without  impugning  their  motives,  I  do 
disagree  most  emphatically  with  both  the  fundamental 
philosophy  and  the  proposed  remedies  of  the  Marxian 
Socialists.  These  Socialists  are  unalterably  opposed  to 
our  whole  industrial  system.  They  believe  that  the  payment 
of  wages  means  everywhere  and  inevitably  an  exploitation 
of  the  laborer  by  the  employer,  and  that  this  leads  inevitably 


524     THF.ODORE   ROOSFA  FIT  -  A\  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to  a  class  war  between  those  two  groups,  or,  as  they  would 
say,  between  the  capitalists  and  the  proletariat.  They 
assert  that  this  class  war  is  already  upon  us  and  can  only 
be  ended  when  capitalism  is  entirely  destroyed  and  all  the 
machines,  mills,  mines,  railroads  and  other  private  property 
used  in  production  are  confiscated,  expropriated  or  taken 
over  by  the  workers.  They  do  not  as  a  rule  claim  —  although 
some  of  the  sinister  extremists  among  them  do —  that  this  class 
war  is  a  war  of  blood  and  bullets,  but  they  do  claim  that  there 
is  and  must  be  a  continual  struggle  between  two  great  classes, 
whose  interests  are  opposed  and  cannot  be  reconciled.  In  this 
war  they  insist  that  the  whole  government  —  National, 
State  and  local  —  is  on  the  side  of  the  employers  and  is 
used  by  them  against  the  workmen,  and  that  our  law  and 
even  (jur  common  morality  are  class  weapons,  like  a  police- 
man's club  or  a  Gatling  gun. 

I  have  never  believed,  and  do  not  to-day  believe,  that  such 
a  class  war  is  upon  us,  or  need  ever  be  upon  us ;  nor  do  I 
believe  that  the  interests  of  wage-earners  and  employers  can- 
not be  harmonized,  compromised  and  adjusted.  It  would 
be  idle  to  deny  that  wage-earners  have  certain  different 
economic  interests  from,  let  us  say,  manufacturers  or  im- 
porters, just  as  farmers  have  diflfcrent  interests  from  sailors, 
and  fishermen  from  bankers.  There  is  no  reason  why  any  of 
these  economic  groups  should  not  consult  their  group  interests 
by  any  legitimate  means  and  with  due  regard  to  the  common, 
overlying  interests  of  all.  I  do  not  even  deny  that  the 
majority  of  wage-earners,  because  they  have  less  property 
and  less  industrial  security  than  others  and  because  they  do 
not  own  the  machinery  with  which  they  work  (as  does  the 
farmer)  are  perhaps  in  greater  need  of  acting  together  than 
are  other  groups  in  the  community.  But  I  do  insist  (and  I 
believe  that  the  great  majority  of  wage-earners  take  the  same 
view)  that  employers  and  employees  have  overwhelming 
interests  in  common,  both  as  partners  in  industry  and  as 
citizens  of  the  Republic,  and  that  where  these  interests  are 
apart  they  can  be  adjusted  by  so  altering  our  laws  and  their 
interpretation  as  to  secure  to  all  members  of  the  community 
social  and  industrial  justice. 


SOCIAL   AM)    INDUSTRIAL    HSTICE 


52s 


I  have  always  maintained  that  our  worst  n  volutioiiariis 
to-day  arc  those  reactionaries  who  do  not  see  and  will  not 
admit  that  there  is  any  need  for  chanj^e.  Such  men  seem 
to  believe  that  the  four  and  a  half  million  Progressive  voters, 
who  in  191 2  registered  their  solemn  protest  against  our  social 
and  industrial  injustice  s,  are  "  inarchists,"  who  are  not  willing 
to  let  ill  enough  alone.  If  liicse  reactionaries  had  lived  at 
an  earlier  time  iii  our  history,  they  would  have  advocated 
Sedition  Laws,  opposed  free  speech  and  free  assembly,  and 
voted  against  free  schools,  free  access  by  settlers  to  the 
pub'ic  lands,  mechanics'  lien  laws,  the  prohibition  of  truck 
stores  and  the  abolitit  .  of  imprisonment  for  debt ;  and  they 
are  the  men  who  to-day  oppose  minimum  wage  laws,  in- 
surance of  workmen  against  the  ills  of  industrial  life  and  the 
reform  of  our  legislatures  and  our  courts,  which  can  alone 
render  such  measures  possible.  Some  of  these  reactionaries 
are  not  bad  men,  but  merely  shortsighted  and  belated.  It 
is  these  reactionaries,  however,  who,  by  "standing  pat" 
on  industrial  injustic?,  incite  inevitably  to  industrial  revolt, 
and  it  is  only  we  who  advocate  political  and  industrial  de- 
mocracy who  render  possible  the  progress  of  our  .American 
industry  on  large  constructive  lines  with  a  minimum  of 
friction  because  with  a  ma.ximum  of  justice. 

Everything  possible  should  be  done  to  secure  the  wage- 
workers  fair  treatment.  There  should  be  an  increased  wage 
for  the  worker  of  increased  productiveness.  Kverything 
possible  should  be  done  against  the  capitalist  who  strives, 
not  to  reward  special  efficiency,  but  to  use  it  as  an  excuse 
for  reducing  the  reward  of  moderate  efficiency.  1  he 
capitalist  is  an  unworthy  citizen  who  pays  the  efficient  man 
no  more  than  he  has  been  content  to  pa\  the  a\erage  man, 
and  nevertheless  reduces  the  wage  of  the  average  man  ;  and 
effort  should  be  made  by  the  Government  to  cluck  and  pun- 
ish him.  Wlui^  labor-saving  machinery  is  introduced,  spec!  i 
care  should  be  taken  by  the  Government  if  necessary  - 
to  see  that  the  wage-worker  gets  his  share  of  the  be  leht, 
and  that  it  is  not  all  absorbed  by  the  employer  or  capitalist. 
The  following  case,  which  has  come  to  my  knowledge,  illus- 
trates what  I  mean.     A  number  of  new  machines  were  in- 


526    TMKODORE   R(M)SK\  KLT- AN   AirOBUX^RAPHV 

stalled  in  a  certain  shoe  factory,  and  as  a  result  there  was 
a  heavy  increase  in  production  even  though  there  was  no 
increase    in   the   labor  force.     Some  of   the  workmen  were 
instructed  in  the  use  of  these    machines  by  special  demon- 
strators sent  out  by   the  makers  of  the  machines.     These 
men,    by    reason   of   their   special    aptitudes  and    the  fact 
that   the\    were  not  called  upon   to  operate  the  machines 
continuously  nine  hours  every  day,  week  in  and  week  out, 
but  only  for  an  hour  or  so  at  special  times,  were  naturally 
able    to'  run    the   machines    at    their    maximum    capacity. 
When  these  demonstrators  had  left  the  factory,  and  the  com- 
pany's own  employees  had  become  used  to  operating  the 
machines  at  a  fair  rate  of  speed,  the  foreman  of  the  establish- 
ment  gradually    speeded    the   machines    and   demanded    a 
larger  and  still  larger  output,  constantly  endeavoring  to  drive 
the  men  on  to  greater  exertions.     Even  with  a  slightly  less 
maximum    capacity,    the    introducticm   of    this    machmery 
resulted  in  a  great  increase  over  former  production  with 
the  same  amount  of  labor;    and  so  great  were  the  profits 
from  the  business  in  the  following  two  years  as  to  equal  the 
total  capitalized  stock  of  the  company.     But  not  a  cent 
got  into  the  pay  envelope  of  the  workmen  beyond  what  they 
had  formerly  been  receiving  before    ne  introduction  of  this 
new  machinery,  notwithstanding  that  it  had  meant  an  added 
strain,  phvsical  and  mental,  upon  their  energies,  and  that 
they  were  forced  to  work  harder  than  ever  before.     The 
whole  of  the  increased  profits  remained  with  the  company. 
Now  this  represented  an  "increase  of  efficiency,"  vvith   a 
positive  decrease  of  social  and  industrial  justice.     The  in- 
crease of  prosperity  which  came  from  increase  of  production 
in  no  way  benefited  the  wage-workers.     I  hold  that  they 
were  treated  with  gross  injustice;    and  that  society,  acting 
if  necessary  through  the  Government,  in  such  a  case  should 
bend  its  energies  to  remedy  such  injustice  ;  and  I  will  support 
any  proper  legislation  that  will  aid  in  securing  the  desired  end. 
"the  wage-worker  should  not  only  receive  fair  treatment ; 
he  should   give   fair  treatment.     In   order  that  prosperity 
mav  be  passed  around  it  is  necessary  that  the  prosperity 
exist.     In  order  that  labor  shall  receive  its  fair  share  in  the 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


S»7 


division  of  reward  it  is  necessary  that  there  be  a  reward  to 
divide.  Any  proposal  to  reduce  efficiency  by  insisting 
that  the  most  efficient  shall  be  limited  in  their  output  to 
what  the  least  efficient  can  do,  is  a  proposal  to  limit  by  so 
much  production,  and  therefore  to  impoverish  by  so  much 
the  public,  and  specifically  to  reduce  th<'  amount  that  can 
be  divided  amon^  ilu-  producers.  Tlis  '.:  all  wrong.  Our 
protest  must   be   ajjainst  unfair  di'.  i       i  <  i    the   reward   for 


•u 


1 


I    !    li;    isi  ! 


•  s  t 


.  Ih. 


1     I 

r.i. 


K'' 


■n    the 

<crous, 

n  like 

1   til-        cicnt 

.'  1    ..f v  1 V  '   cc  the 

r*.  lu.      lue  ^mount 

,eii»ly  eilK\  nt  as  a 

!   'i    •:     p'.Ti.ianently 

rt'.'t  '      .1  ised  pro- 

■V  '  amid  inhcalthy 

..j.iorlcr  hours,  and 


Production.  Kvery  encouragemt 
usiness  man,  the  employer,  to  m.!- 
and  therefore  to  earn  more  nn  •  . 
fashion  every  encouragement 
workman.  We  must  always  I'v  i 
amount  of  production  serve  i.reb.  : 
that  is  to  be  divided,  is  in  no  vva.  pt  ni 
protest  against  unequal  distrimii'  ).. 
detrimental  to  the  entire  commuiii'y. 
ductiveness  is  not  secured  by  excessi .  v 
surroundings.  The  contrary  is  true, 
healthful  conditions,  and  opportunity  for  the  wage-worker  to 
make  more  money,  and  the  chance  for  enjoyment  as  well  as 
work,  all  add  to  efficiency.  My  contention  is  that  there 
should  be  no  penalization  of  efficient  productiveness,  brought 
about  under  healthy  conditions ;  but  that  every  increase  of 
production  brought  about  by  an  increase  in  efficiency  should 
benefit  all  the  parties  to  it,  including  wage-workers  as 
well  as  employers  or  capitalists,  men  who  work  with  their 
hands  as  well  as  men  who  work  with  their  heads. 

With  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  I  more  than  once 
had  serious  trouble.  The  leaders  of  this  organization  had 
preached  anarchy,  and  certain  of  them  were  indicted  for 
having  practiced  murder  in  the  case  of  Governor  Steunenb  g, 
of  Idaho.  On  one  occasion  in  a  letter  or  speech  I  ecu;  d 
condemnation  of  these  labor  leaders  and  condemnation  of 
certain  big  capitalists,  describing  them  all  alike  as  "unde- 
sirable citizens."  This  gave  great  offense  to  both  sides. 
The  open  attack  upon  me  was  made  for  the  most  part 
either  by  the  New  York  newspapers  which  were  frankly 
representatives  of  Wall  Street,  or  else  by  those  so-called  — 


528    THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and  miscalled  -  Socialists  who  had  anarchistic  leanings. 
Many  of  the  latter  sent  me  open  letters  of  denunciation, 
and  to  one  of  them  I  responded  as  follows  : 

Ihe  White  House,  Washington. 
April  22,  1907. 

Dear  Sir: 

1  have  received  your  letter  of  tlic  19th  instant,  in  which 
you  enclose  the  draft  of  the  formal  letter  which  is  to  follow. 
I  have  been  notified  that  several  delegations,  bearing  similar 
requests,  are  on  the  way  hither.  In  the  letter  you,  on  behalf 
of  the  Cook  County  Moyer-Haywood  conference,  protest 
against  certain  language  I  used  in  a  recent  letter  which  you 
assert  to  be  designed  to  influence  the  course  of  justice  in 
the  case  of  the  trial  for  murder  of  Messrs.  Moyer  and  Hay- 
wood. I  entirely  agree  with  you  that  it  is  improper  to 
endeavor  to  influence  the  course  of  justice,  whether  by 
threats  or  in  any  similar  manner.  For  this  reason  I  have 
regretted  most  deeply  the  actions  of  such  organizations  as 
your  own  in  undertaking  to  accomplish  this  very  result  in 
the  very  case  of  which  you  speak.  For  instance,  your  letter  is 
headed'  "Cook  County  Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone  Confer- 
ence," with  the  headlines:  '' Death  —  cannot  —  will  not  — 
and  shall  not  claim  our  brothers  !"  This  shows  that  you  and 
your  associates  are  not  demanding  a  fair  trial,  or  working  for 
a  fair  trial,  but  are  announcing  in  advance  that  the  verdict 
shall  only  be  one  way  and  that  you  will  not  tolerate  any 
other  verdict.  Such  'action  is  flagrant  in  its  impropriety, 
and  I  join  heartily  in  condemning  it. 

But  it  is  a  simple  absurdity  to  suppose  that  because 
any  man  is  on  trial  for  a  given  offense  he  is  therefore  to 
be  freed  from  all  criticism  upon  his  general  conduct  and 
manner  of  life.  In  my  letter  to  which  you  object  I  referred 
to  a  certain  prominent  financier,  Mr.  Harriman,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  to  Messrs  Moyer,  Haywood  and  Debs  on 
the  (Jther,  as  being  equally  undesirable  citizens.  It  is  as 
foolish  to  assert  that  this  was  designed  to  influence  the  trial 
of  .Moyer  and  Haywood  as  to  assert  that  it  was  designed  to 
influence   the   suits   that   have   been   brought   against   Mr. 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


529 


Harriman.  I  neither  expressed  nor  indicated  any  opinion 
as  to  whether  Messrs.  Moyer  and  Haywood  were  guilty 
of  the  murder  of  Governor  Steunenberg.  If  they  are  guilty, 
they  certainly  ought  to  be  punished.  If  they  are  not  guilty, 
they  certainly  ought  not  to  be  punished.  But  no  possible 
outcome  either  of  the  trial  or  the  suits  can  affect  my  judg- 
ment as  to  the  undesirability  of  the  type  of  citizenship  of 
those  whom  I  mentioned.  Messrs.  Moyer,  Haywood,  and 
Debs  stand  as  representatives  of  those  men  who  have  done 
as  much  to  discredit  the  labor  movement  as  the  worst  specu- 
lative financiers  or  most  unscrupulous  employers  of  labor 
and  debauchers  of  legislatures  have  done  to  discredit  honest 
capitalists  and  fair-dealing  business  men.  They  stand  as 
the  representatives  of  those  men  who  by  their  public  utter- 
ances and  manifestoes,  by  the  utterances  of  the  papers  they 
control  or  inspire,  and  by  the  words  and  deeds  of  those 
associated  with  or  subordinated  to  them,  habitually  appear 
as  guilty  of  incitement  to  or  apology  for  bloodshed  and 
violence.  If  this  does  not  constitute  undesirable  citizenship, 
then  there  can  never  be  any  undesirable  citizens.  The  men 
whom  I  denounce  represent  the  men  who  have  abandoned 
that  legitimate  movement  for  the  uplifting  of  labor,  with 
which  I  have  the  most  hearty  sympathy ;  they  have  adopted 
practices  which  cut  them  off  from  those  who  lead  this  legiti- 
mate movement.  In  every  way  I  shall  support  the  law- 
abiding  and  upright  representatives  of  labor;  and  in  no 
way  can  I  better  support  them  than  by  drawing  the  sharpest 
possible  line  between  them  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  those  preachers  of  violence  who  are  themselves 
the  worst  foes  of  the  honest  laboring  man. 

Let  me  repeat  my  deep  regret  that  any  body  of  men 
should  so  far  forget  their  duty  to  the  country  as  to  endeavor 
by  the  formation  of  societies  and  in  other  ways  to  influence 
the  course  of  justice  in  this  matter.  I  have  received  many 
such  letters  as  yours.  Accompanying  them  were  news- 
paper clippings  announcing  demonstrations,  parades,  and 
mass-meetings  designed  to  show  that  the  representatives 
of  labor,  without  regard  to  the  facts,  demand  the  acquittal 
of  Messrs.  Haywood  and  Moyer.     Such  meetings  can,  of 


311 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


531 


course,  be  designed  only  to  coerce  court  or  jury  in  rendering 
a  verdict,  and  they  therefore  deserve  all  the  condemnation 
which  you  in  your  letters  say  should  be  awarded  to  those 
who  endeavor  improperly  to  influence  the  course  of  justice. 

You  would,  of  course,  be  entirely  within  your  rights 
if  you  merely  announced  that  you  thought  Messrs.  Moyer 
and  Haywood  were  "desirable  citizens"  —  though  in  suchcase 
I  should  take  frank  issue  with  you  and  should  say  that, 
wholly  without  regard  to  whether  or  not  they  are  guilty  of 
the  crime  for  which  they  are  now  being  tried,  they  represent 
as  thoroughly  undesirable  a  type  of  citizenship  as  can  be 
found  in  this  country;  a  type  which,  in  the  letter  to  which 
you  so  unreasonably  take  exception,  I  showed  not  to  be  con- 
fined toany  one  class,  but  to  exist  among  some  representatives 
of  great  capitalists  as  well  as  among  some  representatives 
of  wage-workers.  In  that  letter  I  condemned  b(jth  types. 
Certain  representatives  of  the  great  capitalists  in  turn  con- 
demned me  for  including  Mr.  Harriman  in  my  condemnation 
of  Messrs.  Mover  and  Haywood.  Certain  of  the  repre- 
sentatives f)f  labor  in  their  turn  condemned  me  because  I 
included  Messrs.  Moyer  and  Haywood  as  undesirable  citizens 
together  with  Mr.  Harriman.  I  am  as  profoundly  indifferent 
to  the  condemnation  in  one  case  as  in  thf  other.  I  challenge 
as  a  right  the  support  of  ail  good  Americans,  whether  wage- 
workers  or  capitalists,  whatever  their  occupation  or  creed, 
or  in  whatever  portion  of  the  country  they  live,  when  I  con- 
demn both  the  types  of  bad  citizenship  which  I  have  held  up 
to  reprobation.  It  seems  to  be  a  mark  of  utter  insincerity  to 
fail  thus  to  condemn  both  ;  and  to  apologize  for  either  robs 
the  man  thus  apologizing  of  all  right  to  condemn  any  wrong- 
doing in  any  man,  rich  or  poor,  in  public  or  in  private  life. 

Vou  say  you  ask  for  a  "square  deal"  for  Missrs.  Moyer 
and  Haywood.  So  do  I.  When  i  sa>  "square  deal,"  I 
mean  a  square  deal  to  every  one;  it  is  equally  a  violation 
of  the  polic)-  of  the  square  deal  for  a  capitalist  to  pro- 
test against  deMUiiciation  of  a  capitalist  who  is  guilty 
of  wrongdoing  and  for  a  labor  leader  to  protest  against 
the  denunciation  of  a  labor  leader  who  has  been  guilty 
of  wrongdoing.     I  stand  for  equal  justice  to  both;   and  so 


I' 


532    THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  -  AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

far  as  in  my  power  lies  I  shall  uphold  justice,  whether  the 
man  accused  of  guilt  has  behind  him  the  wealthiest  corpora- 
tions, the  greatest  aggregations  of  nches  m  the  country, 
or  whether  he  has  behind  him  the  most  mfluential  labor 
organizations  in  the  country. 

I  treated  anarchists  and  the  bomb-throwing  and  dyna- 
miting gentry  precisely  as  I  treated  other  crimmals.  Murder 
is  murder.  It  is  not  rendered  one  whit  better  by  the  allega- 
tion that  it  is  committed  on  behalf  of  "a  cause.  It  is  true 
that  law  and  order  are  not  all-sufficient ;  but  they  are  essen- 
tial;  lawlessness  and  murderous  violence  must  be  quelled 
before  anv  permanence  of  reform  can  be  obtained.  Y  et 
when  they  have  been  quelled,  the  beneficiaries  of  the  en- 
forcement of  law  must  in  their  turn  be  taught  that  law 
is  upheld  as  a  means  to  the  enforcement  of  justice,  and  that 
we  will  not  tolerate  its  being  turned  into  an  engine  of  in- 
justice and  oppression.  The  fundamental  need  in  dealing 
with  our  people,  whether  laboring  men  or  others,  is  not 
charity  but  justice;  we  must  all  work  in  common  for  the 
common  end  of  helping  each  and  all,  in  a  spirit  of  the 
sanest,  broadest  and  deepest  brotherhood. 

It  was  not  always  easy  to  avoid  feeling  very  deep  anger 
with  the  selfishness  and  short-sightedness  shown  both  by 
the  representatives  of  certain  employers'  organizations  and 
by  certain  great  labor  federations  or  unions.  One  such 
employers'  association  was  called  the  National  Association 
of  Manufacturers.  Extreme  though  the  attacks  sometimes 
made  upon  mc  by  the  extreme  labor  organizations  were, 
they  were  not  quite  as  extreme  as  the  attacks  made  upon 
nic  bv  the  head  of  the  National  Association  of  Manufactur- 
ers, and  as  regards  their  attitude  toward  legislation  I  came 
to  the  conclusion  toward  the  end  of  my  term  that  the  latter 
had  actually  gone  further  the  wrong  way  than  did  the  former 
—  and  the'formcr  went  a  gc»d  distance  also.  The  oppo- 
sition of  the  National  Association  of  Manufacturers  to 
every  rational  and  moderate  measure  for  benefiting  working- 
men,  such  as  measures  abt)lishing  child  labor,  or  securing 
workmen's  compensation,  caused  me  real  and  grave  concern  ; 


i€:^m'!"'m 


SOCIAL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


533 


for  I  felt  that  it  was  ominous  of  evil  for  the  whole  country 
to  have  men  who  ought  to  stand  high  in  wisdom  and  in  guid- 
ing force  take  a  course  and  use  language  of  such  reactionary 
type  as  directly  to  incite  revolution  —  for  this  is  what  the 
extreme  reactionary  always  does. 

Often  I  was  attacked  by  the  two  sides  at  once.  In  the 
spring  of  1906  I  received  in  the  same  mail  a  letter  from  a  very 
good  friend  of  mine  who  thought  that  I  had  been  unduly  hard 
on  some  labor  men,  and  a  letter  from  another  friend,  the 
head  of  a  great  corporation,  who  complained  about  me  for 
both  favoring  labor  and  speaking  against  large  fortunes. 
My  answers  ran  as  follows : 

April  26,  1906. 
"Personal. 
My  dear  Doctor: 

In  one  of  my  last  letters  to  you  I  enclosed  vou  a  copy  of  a 
letter  of  mine,  in  which  I  quoted  from  [So  and  so'sj  advocacy 
of  murder.  You  may  be  interested  to  know  that  he  and  his 
brother  Socialist:  —  in  reality  anarchists  —  of  the  frankly 
murderous  type  have  been  violently  attacking  my  speech 
because  of  my  allusion  to  the  sympathy  expressed  for  murder. 
In  The  Socialist,  of  Toledo,  Ohio,  of  April  21st,  for  in- 
stance, the  attack  [on  me)  is  based  specifically  on  the  follow- 
ing paragraph  of  my  speech,  to  which  he  takes  violent  ex- 
ception : 

We  can  no  more  and  no  less  afford  to  condone  evil 
in  the  man  of  capital  than  evil  in  the  man  of  no  capital. 
The  wealthy  man  who  exults  because  there  is  a  failure  of 
justice  in  the  effort  to  bring  some  trust  magnate  to  an  account 
for  his  misdeeds  is  as  bad  as,  and  no  worse  than,  the  so-called 
labor  leader  who  clamorously  strives  to  excite  a  foul  class  feel- 
ing on  behalf  of  some  other  labor  leader  who  is  implicated 
in  murder.  One  attitude  is  as  bad  as  the  other,  and  no 
worse;  in  each  case  the  accused  is  entitled  to  exact  justice; 
and  in  neither  case  is  there  need  of  action  by  others  which 
can  be  construed  into  an  expression  of  sympathy  for  crime. 

Remember  that  this  crowd  of  labor  leaders  have  done  all 
in  their  power  to  overawe  the  executive  and  the  courts  of 


534    THKODORK   ROOSF.VFIT- AN'   AUTOBIOORAPIIV 


Idaho  on   behalf  of  men   accused  of  murder,  and  beyond 
question  inciters  of  murder  in  the  past." 

April  z(t,  i<>o6. 
'Wly  dear  Juikr: 

I  wish  tlie  papers  had  given  more  prominence  to  what 
I  said  as  to  tlu-  murder  part  of  my  speech.  But  oh,  my 
dear  sir,  I  utterly  and  radically  disagree  with  you  in  what 
you  say  about  large  fortunes.  1  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to 
devise  some  scheme  to  make  it  increasingly  difficult  to  heap 
them  up  beyond  a  certain  amount.  As  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  such  a  scheme  are  very  great,  let  us  at  least  pre- 
vent their  being  bequeathed  after  death  or  given  during 
life  to  any  one  man  in  excessive  amount. 

Vol    and  other  capitalist  friends,  on  one  side,  shy  off  at 
what     say  against  them.     Have  you  seen  the  frantic  articles 
me  by  [the  anarchists  and]  the  Socialists  of  the  bomb- 
nvr  persuasion,  on  the  other  side,  because  of  what  I 
ay  speech  in  reference  to  whose  who,  in  effect,  advo- 
irder  ? " 


agan 
thrr 

sai 
ca 


.rtau 
Icade- 
the 


inother  occasion  I  was  veliemently  denounced  in 
apitalistic  papers  because  I  had  a  number  of  labor 
incluJing  miners  from  Butte,  lunch  with  me  at 
ite    I     'Use;     and    this   at    the    very 


time    that    the 


Westei  1  Ft  ...  ation  of  Miner'^  was  most  ferocious  in  its 
denunt  atioi.  <  f  me  because  of  what  it  alleged  to  be  my  un- 
friendl)  attitude  towartl  labor.  To  one  of  my  critics  I  set 
forth  mv  \  iews  in  the  following  letter: 


NciveinbtT  26,  li>0?. 
"  I  have  your  letter  of  tlie  25th  instant,  with  enclosure. 
These  men,  not  all  of  whom  were  miners,  by  the  way,  came 
here  and  were  at  lunch  with  me,  in  company  with  Mr. 
Carroil  D.  Wright,  Mr.  Wayne  Mac\eagh.  and  Secretary 
Cortelyou.  They  are  as  decent  a  set  of  men  as  can  be. 
They  all  agreed  entirely  with  me  in  my  denunciation  of  what 
had  been  done  in  tlie  Canir  d'Alene  count r\;  and  it 
appeared   that    some  of   them    were  on    the  platform  with 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


S35 


me  when  I  denounced  this  type  of  outrage  three  years  ago 
in  Butte.  There  is  not  one  man  who  was  here,  who,  I  be- 
lieve, was  in  any  way,  shape  or  form  responsible  for 
such  outrages.  I  find  that  the  ultra-Socialistic  members  of 
the  unions  in  Butte  denounced  these  men  for  coming  here, 
in  a  manner  as  violent  -and  I  may  sa\-  as  irrational  ~  as 
the  denunciation  [by  the  capitalistic  writer]  in  the  article 
you  sent  me.  Doubtless  the  gentleman  of  whom  you  speak 
as  your  general  manager  is  an  admirable  man.  I,  of  course, 
was  not  alluding  to  him;  but  I  most  emphatically  zvas 
alluding  to  men  who  write  such  articles  as  that  you  sent  me. 
These  articles  are  to  be  paralleled  by  the  similar  articles  in 
the  Populist  and  Socialist  papers  when  two  years  ago  I 
had  at  dinner  at  one  time  l*ierpont  Morgan,  and  at  another 
time  j.  |.  Hill,  and  at  another,  Harriman,  and  at  another 
time  Scliiff.  Furthermore,  they  could  be  paralleled  by  the 
articles  in  the  same  type  of  paper  which  at  the  time  of  the 
Miller  incident  in  the  i'rinting  Office  were  in  a  conditicm  of 
nervous  anxiety  because  I  met  the  labor  leaders  to  discuss  it. 
It  would  have  been  a  great  misfortune  if  I  had  not  met  them  ; 
and  it  would  have  been  an  even  greater  misfortune  if  after 
meeting  them  I  had  _\  ielded  to  their  protests  in  the  matter. 

Y'ou  say  in  your  letter  that  you  know  that  I  am  "on 
record"  as  opposed  to  violence'  Pardon  my  saying  that 
this  seems  to  me  not  the  right  way  to  put  the  matter,  if 
by  "record"  you  mean  utterance  and  not  action,  .\side 
from  what  happened  when  I  was  (governor  in  connection, 
for  instance,  with  the  Croton  dam  strike  riots,  all  you  have 
to  do  is  to  turn  back  to  what  took  place  last  June  in  Arizona 

-and  you  can  find  out  about  it  from  [Mr.  X]  of  New  York. 
The  miners  struck,  violence  followed,  and  the  Arizona 
Territorial  authorities  notified  ine  they  could  not  grapple 
with  the  situation.  Witiiii)  twenty  ininuti-s  of  the  receipt 
of  the  telegram,  order-^  '.vetc  issued  to  tlie  m-arest  available 
troops,  and  t\vent\-four  h-mrs  afterwards  ("leiieral  Baldwin 
and  his  regulars  wi-re  oii  the  ground,  and  twenty-four 
hours  later  ever>-  vestige  of  disorder  had  disappeared. 
The  Miners'  Federation  in  their  meeting,  I  think  at  Denver, 
a    short    while    afterwards,    passed    resolutions    denouncing 


536     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

mc.     1  do  not  know  whether  the  Mining  and  Engineering 
Journal  paid  any  heed  to  this  incident  or   knew  of  it.     If 
the  Journal  did,  I  suppose  it  can   hardly   have   failed   to 
understand  that  to  put  an  immediate  stop  to  rioting  by  the 
use  of  the  United  States  army  is  a  fact  of  importance  beside 
which  the  criticism  of  my  having  "  labor  leaders  "  to  lunch, 
shrinks  into  the  same  insignificance  as  the  criticism  in  a 
diflFerent  type  of  paper  about  my  having  "  trust  magnates  "  to 
lunch.     While  I  am  President  I  wish  the  labor  man  to  feel 
that  he  has  the  same  right  of  access  to  me  that  the  capitalist 
has ;  that  the  doors  swing  open  as  easily  to  the  wage-worker 
as  to  the  head  of  a  big  corporation  —  and  no  easier.     Any- 
thing else  seems  to  be  not  only  un-American,  but  as  sympto- 
matic of  an  attitude  which  will  cost  grave  trouble  if  per- 
severed in.     To  discriminate  against  labor  men  from  Butte 
because  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  rioting  has  been  excited 
in  other  districts  by  certain  labor  unions,  or  individuals 
in  labor  unions  in  Butte,  would  be  to  adopt  precisely  the 
attitude  of  those  who  desire  me  to  discriminate  against  all 
capitalists  in  Wall  Street  because  there  are  plenty  of  capi- 
talists in  Wall  Street  who  have  been  guilty  of  bad  financial 
practices  and  who  have  endeavored  to  override  or  evade 
the  laws  of  the  land.     In  my  judgment,  the  only  safe  attitude 
for  a  private  citizen,  and  still  more  for  a  public  servant,  to 
assume,  is  that  he  will  draw  the  line  on  conduct,  discriminat- 
ing against  neither  corporation  nor  union  as  such,  nor  in 
favor  of  either  as  such,  but  endeavoring  to  make  the  decent 
member  of  the  union  and  the  upright  capitalists  alike  feel 
that  they  are  bound,  not  only  by  self-interest,  but  by  every 
consideration  of  principle  and  duty  to  stand  together  on  the 
matters  of  most  moment  to  the  nation." 

On  another  of  the  various  occasions  when  I  had  labor 
leaders  to  dine  at  the  White  House,  my  critics  were  rather 
shocked  because  I  had  John  Morley  to  meet  them.  The 
labor  leaders  in  question  included  the  heads  of  the  various 
railroad  brotherhoods,  men  like  Mr.  Morrissey,  in  whose 
sound  judgment  and  high  standard  of  citizenship  I  had 
peculiar  confidence ;   and  I  askcd  Mr.  Morley  to  meet  them 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSriLl-: 


537 


because  they  represented  the  exact  typt  of  American 
citizen  with  whom  I  thought  he  ought  to  be  brought  in 
contact. 

One  of  the  devices  sometimes  usca  by  big  corporations  to 
break  down  the  law  was  to  treat  the  passage  of  laws  as  an 
excuse  for  action  on  their  part  which  they  knew  would  be 
resented  by  the  public,  it  being  their  purpose  to  turn  this 
resentment  against  the  law  instead  of  against  themselves. 
The  heads  of  the  Louisville  and  Nashville  road  were  bitter 
opponents  of  everything  done  by  the  (jovernment  toward 
securing  good  treatment  for  their  employees.  In  February, 
1908,  they  and  various  other  railways  announced  that  they 
intended  to  reduce  the  wages  of  their  employees.  A  general 
strike,  with  all  the  attendant  disorder  and  trouble,  was 
threatened  in  consequence.  I  accordingly  sent  the  following 
open  letter  to  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission : 


February  18,  1908. 

"7*0  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission: 

I  am  informed  that  a  number  of  railroad  companies  have 
served  notice  of  a  proposed  reduction  of  wages  of  their 
employees.  One  of  them,  the  Louisville  and  Nashville, 
in  announcing  the  reduction,  states  that  "  the  drauic  laws 
inimical  to  the  interests  of  the  railroads  that  have  in  the  past 
year  or  two  been  enacted  by  Congress  and  the  .State  Legis- 
latures" are  largely  or  chiefly  responsible  for  the  conditions 
requiring  the  reduction. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  is  possible  that  the  public 
may  soon  be  confronted  by  serious  industrial  disputes,  and 
the  law  provides  that  in  such  case  either  party  may  demand 
the  services  of  your  Chairman  and  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Labor  as  a  Board  of  Mediation  and  Conciliation.  Those 
reductions  in  wages  may  be  warranted,  or  they  may  not. 
As  to  this  the  public,  which  is  a  x'itally  interested  party,  can 
form  no  judgment  without  a  more  complete  knowledge 
of  the  essential  facts  and  real  merits  of  the  case  than  it  now 
has  or  than  it  can  possibly  obtain  from  the  special  pleadings, 
certain  to  be  put  forth  by  each  side  in  case  their  dispute 


538     THEODORL   ROOSKVLLT-AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

shouia  bring  about  serious  interruption  to  traffic.     It   'he 
reduction  in  wages   is   due   to  natural   causes    the  loss  of 
busii-       being   fuch    that    the   burden   shou  d   be,    and    .s 
euuitably  distributed  betwee.,  capitalist  and  wage-vvo  ke  , 
he  pubic  should  know  it.      If  it  is  caused  by  legislation 
he  public,  and  Congress,  slu.uld  know  it ;  and  if  it  is  cause  d 
b    misconduct  in  the  past  financial  or  other  operations  o  an 
railroad    then  everybody  should  know  ,t,  especially  if  the 
excuse  of  unfriendly  legislation  is  advanced  as  a  method  of 
co^r  rg  up  past  buli.u's  miscnduct  by  the  railroad  manag- 
er., or  as  i  justification  for  failure  to  treat  fairly  the  wage- 
earninir  employees  of  the  company.  i     ,  i 

\i  reuver,    'an    industrial     conflict    between     a    railroad 
corporation  and  its  employees  offers  P-uliar  opportumties 
to  anv  small  number  of  evil-disposed  persons  t;> 'i^-tn      li  c 
and   property   and  foment    public    disorder.     Of    course, 
Hfe,    propertV,   and    public   order   are   endangered,    promp 
and  drastic  measures  for  their  protection  become  the  first 
plain  dutv.     All  other  issues  then  become  subordinate  to 
he  preservation  of  the  public  peace,  and   the   real   merits 
o    the  original  controversy  are  necessarily  lost  from  vew 
This  vital  consideration  should  be  ever   kept   in   mind  b> 
all  law-abiding  and  far-sighted  members  <.f  labor  organiza- 

"Tis  sincerely  to  be  hoped,  therefore,  that  any  wage  con- 
truversv  that  mav  arise  between  the  railroads  and  he  r 
X  ..vees  mav  find  a  peaceful  solution  through  the  niethods 
oronciliation'and  arbitration  already  provided  by  Congress 
which  have  proven  so  effective  during  the  past  year,  lo 
Thi  end  the  Commission  should  be  in  a  position  to  have  avail- 
able or  anv  Board  of  Conciliation  or  Arbitration  relevant 
data  pertaining  to  such  carriers  as  may  become  involved  in 
industrial  disputes.  Should  conciliation  fail  ..  efTect  a 
eS'tt  and  arbitration  be  rejected,  accurate  information 
should  be  available  in  order  to  develop  a  properly  informed 

Pt'die^f;!""ask  vou  to  make  such  investigation,  both  of 
your  records  and  by  any  other  means  at  your  '^""^"J^^l^f '  ;;;; 
will  enable  you  lo  furnish  data  concerning  such  conditions 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL  JUSTICE 


S39 


obtaining  on  tin-  Louisvillf  and  Nashville  and  any  other 
roads,  as  may  rrlatr,  dirrctly  or  indirectly,  to  the  rtal  merits 
of  the  possibly  impending  controversy. 

Theodore  Roosevelt." 

This  letter  achieved  its  purpose,  anil  the  threatened  re- 
diKiioii  of  wages  was  not  made.  It  was  an  instance  of  what 
Could  be  accomplished  by  governmental  action.  Let  me 
add.  however,  with  all  the  emphasis  I  possess,  that  this 
does  nut  mean  any  failure  on  my  part  to  recognize  the  fact 
that  if  governmental  action  places  too  heavy  burdens  on 
raiiwa)  s,  it  will  be  impossible  for  them  to  operate  without 
doing  injustice  to  somebody.  Railways  cannot  pay  proper 
wages  and  render  proper  service  unless  they  make  money. 
'I'he  investors  must  get  a  reasonable  profit  or  they  will  not 
invest,  and  the  public  cannot  be  well  served  unless  the 
investors  are  making  reasonable  profits.  There  is  every 
reason  win  rate;,  should  not  be  too  high,  but  they  must  be 
sufficiently  high  to  allow  the  railways  to  pay  good  wages. 
Moreover,  when  laws  like  workmen's  compensation  laws, 
and  the  like  are  passed,  it  must  always  be  kept  in  mind  by 
the  Legislature  that  the  purpose  is  to  distribute  over  the  whole 
community  a  burden  that  should  not  be  borne  only  by  those 
least  able  to  bear  it  that  is,  by  the  injured  man  or  the 
widow  and  orphans  of  the  dead  man.  If  the  railway  is 
already  receiving  a  disproportionate  return  from  the  public, 
then  the  burden  may,  with  propriety,  bear  purely  on  the 
railway  ;  but  if  it  is  not  earning  a  disproportionate  return, 
then  the  public  must  bear  its  share  of  the  burden  of  the 
increased  service  the  railway  is  rendering.  Dividends  and 
wages  should  go  up  together;  and  the  relation  of  rates  to 
them  should  never  be  forgotten.  This  of  course  does  not 
apply  to  dividends  based  on  water;  nor  does  it  mean  that  if 
foolish  people  have  built  a  road  that  renders  no  service,  the 
public  must  nevertheless  in  some  way  guarantee  a  return 
on  the  investment ;  but  it  does  mean  that  the  interests  of 
the  honest  Investor  are  entitled  to  the  same  protection  as  the 
interests  of  the  honest  manager,  the  honest  shipper  and  the 
honest    wage  earner.     All    these    conflicting   considerations 


MICROCOPY   RESOIUTION   TEST  CHART 

lANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    2) 


t  if  m 

t    J    12.0 


1.8 


1.6 


^     APPLIED  IM/lGE 


''6)  482  -  0300  -  Pnon, 
:"6)  288  -  5989  -  Ft,. 


■\.^ 


S40     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

should  be  carefully  considered  by  Legislatures  before  passing 
aws  One  of  the  great  objects  in  creating  _  commissions 
^.ould  ^  the  provision  of  disinterested,  fair-minded  experts 
wC  win  reall^  and  wisely  consider  all  these  matters^  and 
will  shape  their  actions  accordingly.  This  is  one  reason 
Tvhy  such  matters  as  the  regulation  of  rates  the  prov  sion 
for  full  crews  on  roads  and  the  like  should  be  IfyoL^/^fJ^ 
ment  by  railway  commissions,  and  not  be  settled  off  hand 
by  direct  legislative  action. 


APPENDIX 


SOCIALISM 

As  regards  what  I  have  said  in  this  chapter  concerning  Socialism, 
I  wish  to  call  especial  attention  to  the  admirable  book  on  "  Xlarxism 
versus  Socialism,"  which  has  just  been  published  by  Vladimir  D. 
Simkhovitch.     What  I  have,  here  and  elsewhere,  merely  pointed 
out  in  rough  and  ready  fashion  from  actual  observation  of  the  facts 
of  life  around  me,  Professor  Simkhovitch  in  his  book  has  discussed 
with  keen  practical  insight,  with  profundity  of  learning,  and  with 
a  wealth  of  applied  philosophy.     Crude  thinkers  in  the  United 
States,  and  moreover  honest  and  intelligent  men  who  are  not  crude 
thinkers,  but  who  are  oppressed  by  the  sight  of  the  misery  around 
them  and  have  not  deeply  studied  what  has  been  done  elsewhere, 
are  very  apt  to  adopt  as  their  own  the  theories  of  European 
Ma-xian  Socialists  of  half  a  century  ago,  ignorant  that  the  course 
of  events  has  so  completely  falsified  the  prophecies  contained  in 
these  theories  that  they  have  been  abandoned  even  by  the  authors 
themselves.     With  quiet  humor  Professor  Simkhovitch  now  and 
then  makes  an  allusion  which  shows  that  he  appreciates  to  per- 
fection this  rather  curious  quality  of  some  of  our  fellow  country- 
men ;  as  for  example  when  he  says  that  "A  Socialist  State  with  the 
farmer  outside  of  it  is  a  conception  that  can  rest  comfortably  only  in 
the  head  of  an  American  Socialist,"  or  as  when  he  speaks  of  Marx 
and  Engels  as  men  "to  whom  thinking  was   not  an   irrelevant 
foreign  tradition."     Too  many  thoroughly  well-meaning  men  and 
women  in  the  America  of  to-day  glibly  repeat  and  accept  —  much 
as  medieval  schoolmen  repeated  and  accepted  authorized  dogma  in 
their  day  —  various  assumptions  and  speculations  byMarx  and 
others  which  by  the  lapse  of  time  and  by  actual  experiment  have 
been  shown  to   possess   not   one  shred  of  value.     Professor  Sim- 
khovitch possesses  the  gift  of  condensation  as  well  as  the  gift  of  clear 
and  logical  statement,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  give  in  brief  any 
idea  of  his  admirable  work.     Every  social  reformer  who  desires 
to  face  facts  should  study  it  — just  as    social   reformers^  should 
study  John  Graham   Brooks's  "American  Syndicalism."     From 

541 


542     THEODORE    ROOSEVELT -AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Professor  Simkhovitch's  book  we  Americans  should  learn  :  F'rst, 
to  discard  crude  thinking ;  second,  to  realize  that  the  orthodox 
or  so-called  scientific  or  purely  economic  or  materialistic  socialism 
of  the  type  preached  by  Marx  is  an  exploded  theory;  and,  third, 
that  many  of  the  men  who  call  themselves  Socialists  to-day  are  in 
reality  merely  radical  social  reformers,  with  whom  on  many  points 
good  citizens  can  and  ought  to  work  in  hearty  general  agreernent, 
and  whom  in  many  practical  matters  of  government  good  citizens 
can  well  aflFord  to  follow. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


THE    MONROE    DOCTRINE    AND   THE    PANAMA   CANAL 

NO  nation  can  claim  rights  without  acknowledging 
the  duties  that  go  with  the  rights.  It  is  a  con- 
temptible thing  for  a  great  nation  to  render  itself 
impotent  in  international  action,  whether  because 
of  cowardice  or  sloth,  or  sheer  inability  or  unwillingness  to 
look  into  the  future.  It  is  a  very  wicked  thing  for  a  nation 
to  do  wrong  to  others.  But  the  most  contemptible  and  most 
wicked  course  of  conduct  is  for  a  nation  to  use  offensive  lan- 
guage or  be  guilty  of  offensive  actions  toward  other  people 
and  yet  fail  to  hold  its  own  if  the  other  nation  retaliates; 
and  it  is  almost  as  bad  to  undertake  responsibilities  and  then 
not  fulfil  them.  During  the  seven  and  a  half  years  that  I 
was  President,  this  Nation  behaved  in  international  matters 
toward  all  other  nations  precisely  as  an  honorable  man  be- 
haves to  his  fellow-men.  We  made  no  promise  which  we 
could  not  and  did  not  keep.  We  made  no  threat  which  we 
did  not  carry  out.  We  never  failed  to  assert  our  rights  in 
the  face  of  the  strong,  and  we  never  failed  to  treat  both  strong 
and  weak  with  courtesy  and  justice;  and  against  the  weak 
when  they  misbehaved  we  were  slower  to  assert  our  rights 
than  we  were  against  the  strong. 

As  a  legacy  of  the  Spanish  War  we  were  left  with  peculiar 
relations  to  the  Philippines,  Cuba,  and  Porto  Rico,  and  with 
an  immensely  added  interest  in  Central  America  and  the 
Caribbean  Sea.  As  regards  the  Philippines  my  belief  was 
that  we  should  train  them  for  self-government  as  rapidly 
as  possible,  and  then  leave  them  free  to  decide  their  own  fate. 
I  did  mn  believe  in  setting  the  time-limit  within  which  we 
would  give  them  independence,  because  I  did  not  believe  it 
wise  to  try  to  forecast  how  soon  they  would  be  fit  for  self- 

S43 


t 

I'lt 


544     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

government;    and  once  having  made  ^»^^f  ^"K'ff. /„ ^^w 
have  felt  that  it  was  imperative  to  keep  it.     Within  a  few 
m  "ths  of  my  assuming  office  we  had  stamped  out  the   ast 
armed  resistance  in  the  Philippines  that  was  not  of  merely 
sporadic  character;    and  as  soon  as  peace  was  secured  we 
Smed  our  energies' to  developing  the  islands  in  the  interests 
of  the  natives.     VVe   established   schools   everywhere;    we 
built  roads;   we  administered  an  even-handed  justice;   we 
did  everything  possible  to  encourage  agriculture  and  indus-  . 
try;    and  in  constantly  increasing  measure  we  employed 
natives  to  do  their  own  governing   and  finally  Provided  a 
legislative  chamber.     No  higher  grade  of  public  officials  eve 
handled  the  affairs  of  any  colony  than  the  P^bHc  officials 
who    in    succession    governed    the    Philippines.     With   the 
possible  exception  of  the  Sudan    and   "?^  ^.^^  "/dTvC^ 
Aleiers  I  know  of  no  country  ruled  and  administered  by  men 
of 'the  white  race  where  that  rule  and  that  administration 
have  been  exercised  so  emphatically  with  an  eye  single  to 
the  welfare  of  the  natives   themselves.     The   English  and 
Dutch   administrators  of  Malaysia   have   done   admirable 
work;  but  the  profit  to    he  Europeans  in  those  States  has 
always  been  one  of  the  chief  elements  considered ;   whereas 
in  the  Philippines  our  whole  attention  was  concentrated 
upon  the  welfare  of  the  Filipinos  themselves,  if  anything  to 
the  neglect  of  our  own  interests. 

I  do  not  believe  that  America  has  any  special  beneficial 
interest  in  retaining  the  Philippines.     Our  work  there  has 
benefited  us  only  as  any  efficiently  done  work  performed  for 
the  benefit  of  others  does  incidentally  help  the  character  of 
those  who  do  it.     The  people  of  the  ifn^s  have  never 
developed   so   rapidly,   from   every   standpomt,   as   during 
the    years    of   the   American   occupation.      The  time  will 
come  when  it  will  be  wise  to  take  their  own  judgment  as  to 
whether  they  wish  to  continue  their  association  with  America 
or  not      There  is,  however,  one  consideration  upon  which 
we  should  insist.     Either  we  should  retain  complete  control 
of  the  islands,  or  absolve  ourselves  from  all  respons>bi  ty 
for  them.     Any  half  and  half  course  would  be  both  foolish 
and  disastrous.     We  are  governing  and  have  been  governing 


MONROE   DOCTRIXK  AND  PANAMA  CANAL    545 

the  islands  in  the  interests  of  the  Filipinos  themselves.  If 
after  due  time  the  Filipinos  themselves  decide  that  they  do 
not  wish  to  be  thus  governed,  then  I  trust  that  we  will  leave  ; 
but  when  we  do  leave  it  must  be  distincti)  understood  that 
we  retain  no  protectorate  -  and  alxne  all  that  we  take  part 
in  no  joint  protectorate  —  over  the  islands,  and  give  them 
no  guarantee,  of  neutrality  or  otherwise;  that,  in  short, 
we  are  absolutely  quit  of  responsibility  for  them,  of  every 
kind  and  description. 

The  Filipinos  were  quite  incapable  of  standing  by  them- 
selves when  we  took  possession  of  the  islands,  and  we  had 
made  no  promise  concerning  them.  But  we  had  explicitly 
promised  to  leave  the  island  of  Cuba,  had  explicitly  promised 
that  Cuba  should  be  independent.  Early  in  my  administra- 
tion that  promise  was  redeemed.  When  the  promise  was 
made,  I  doubt  if  there  was  a  single  ruler  or  diplomat  in 
Europe  who  believed  that  it  would  be  kept.  As  far  as  I 
know,  the  United  States  was  the  first  power  which,  having 
made  such  a  promise,  kept  it  in  letter  and  spirit.  England 
was  unwise  enough  to  make  such  a  promise  when  she  took 
Egypt.  It  would  have  been  a  capital  misfortune  to  have 
kept  the  promise,  and  England  has  remained  in  Egypt  for 
over  thirty  years,  and  will  unquestionably  remain  indefi- 
nitely; but  though  it  is  necessary  for  her  to  do  so,  the  fact 
of  her  doing  so  has  meant  the  breaking  of  a  positive  promise 
and  has  been  a  real  evil.  Japan  made  the  same  guarantee 
about  Korea,  but  as  far  as  can  be  seen  there  was  never  even 
any  thought  of  keeping  the  promise  in  this  case ;  and  Korea, 
which  had  shown  herself  utterly  impotent  cither  for  self- 
government  or  self-defense,  was  in  actual  fact  almost  immedi- 
ately annexed  to  Japan. 

We  made  the  promise  to  give  Cuba  independence  ;  and  we 
kept  the  promise.  Leonard  Wood  was  left  in  as  Governor 
for  two  or  three  years,  and  evolved  order  out  of  chaos,  raising 
the  administration  of  the  island  to  a  level,  moral  and  mate- 
rial, which  it  had  never  before  achieved.  We  also  by  treaty 
gave  the  Cubans  substantial  advantages  in  our  markets. 
Then  we  left  the  island,  turning  the  government  o\-er  to  its 
own  people.  After  four  or  five  years  a  revolution  broke  out, 
2  N 


546     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

during  my  administration,  and  we  again  had  to  intervene  to 
restore  order.  We  promptly  sent  thither  a  small  army  ot 
pacification.  Under  General  Barry,  order  was  restored  and 
kept,  and  absolute  justice  done.  The  American  troops  were 
then  withdrawn  and  the  Cubans  reestablished  in  complete 
possession  of  their  own  beautiful  island,  and  they  are  in 
possession  of  it  now.  There  are  plenty  of  occasions  in  our 
history  when  we  have  shown  weakness  or  inefficiency,  and 
some  occasions  when  we  have  not  been  as  scrupulous  as  we 
should  have  been  as  regards  the  rights  of  others.  But  I  know 
of  no  action  by  any  other  government  in  relation  to  a  weaker 
power  which  showed  such  disinterested  efficiency  in  render- 
ing service  as  was  true  in  connection  with  our  intervention 

in  Cuba.  ,       .    _         _.       ^     » 

In  Cuba,  as  in  the  Philippines  and  as  in  Porto  Rico,  hanto 
Domingo,  and  later  in  Panama,  no  small  part  of  our  success 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  we  put  in  the  highest  grade  of  men  as 
public  officials.  This  practice  was  inaugurated  under  Presi- 
dent McKinley.  I  found  admirable  men  in  office,  and  1 
continued  them  and  appointed  men  like  them  as  their  suc- 
cessors. The  way  that  the  custom-houses  in  Santo  Do- 
mingo were  administered  by  Colton  definitely  established 
the  success  of  our  experimem  in  securing  peace  for  that  island 
republic ;  and  in  Porto  Rico,  under  the  administration  ot 
affairs  under  such  officials  as  Hunt,  Winthrop,  Post,  Ward 
and  Grahame,  more  substantial  progress  was  achieved  in  a 
decade  than  in  any  previous  century.  _ 

The  Philippines,  Cuba,  and  Porto  Rico  came  within  our 
own  sphere  of  governmental  action.  In  addition  to  this  we 
asserted  certain  rights  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  under  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  My  endeavor  was  not  only  to  assert 
these  rights,  but  frankly  and  fully  to  acknowledge  the 
duties  that  went  with  the  rights. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  lays  down  the  rule  that  the  \Vestern 
Hemisphere  is  not  hereafter  to  be  treated  as  subject  to 
settlement  and  occupation  by  Old  World  powers.  It  is  not 
international  law  ;  but  it  is  a  cardinal  principle  of  our  foreign 
policy.  There  is  no  difficulty  at  the  present  day  in  maintain- 
ing this  doctrine,  save  where  the  Ai     rican  power  whose 


MONROE  DOCTRINE  AND  PANAMA  CANAL    547 


interest  is  threatened  has  shown  itself  in  international  mat- 
ters both  weak  and  delinquent.  The  great  and  prosperous 
civilized  commonwealths,  such  as  the  Argentine,  Brazil, 
and  Chile,  in  the  Southern  half  of  South  America,  have 
advanced  so  far  that  they  no 
longer  stand  in  any  position  of 
tutelage  toward  the  United  States. 
They  occupy  toward  us  precisely 
the  position  that  Canada  occupies. 
Their  friendship  is  the  friendship 
of  equals  for  equals.  My  view 
was  that  as  regards  these  nations 
there  was  no  more  necessity  for 
asserting  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
than  there  was  to  assert  it  in  re- 
gard to  Canada.  They  were  com- 
petent to  assert  it  for  themselves. 
Of  course  if  one  of  these  nations, 
or  if  Canada,  should  be  overcome 
by  some  Old  World  power,  which 
then  proceeded  to  occupy  its  ter- 
ritory, we  would  undoubtedly,  if 
the  American  Nation  needed  our  help,  give  it  in  order  to 
prevent  such  occupation  from  taking  place.  But  the  initia- 
tive would  come  from  the  Nation  itself,  and  the  United 
States  would  merely  act  as  a  friend  whose  help  was  invoked. 
The  case  was  (and  is)  widely  different  as  regards  certain 
—  not  all  —  of  the  tropical  states  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Caribbean  Sea.  Where  these  states  are  stable  and  pros- 
perous, they  stand  on  a  footing  of  absolute  equality  with  all 
other  communities.  But  some  of  them  have  been  a  prey 
to  such  continuous  revolutionary  misrule  as  to  have  grown 
impotent  either  to  do  their  duties  to  outsiders  or  to  enforce 
their  rights  against  outsiders.  The  United  States  has  not 
the  slightest  desire  to  make  aggressions  on  any  one  of  these 
states.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  submit  to  much  from  them 
without  showing  resentment.  If  any  great  civilized  power, 
Russia  or  Germany,  for  instance,  had  behaved  toward  us  as 
Venezuela  under  Castro  behaved,  this  country  would  have 


Mkdal  awarded  by  Mk.  Roose- 
velt  for  two  years'  continuous 

SERVICE  ON  THE  PANAMA  CaNAL. 


548     THEODORE   ROOSE\  KLT   -  AN   AUTOBKKiRAPHY 

.our  f.  war  at  .>,kc.  Wo  did  not  go  t..  war  with  Ve';^-'-"^!^ 
nuTfly  because  our  people  declined  to  be  .rntated  by  the 
actions  c.f  a  weak  opponent,  and  showed  a  forbearance  wh.ch 
probablv  went  beyond  the  limits  of  wisdom  .n  refusing  to 
Take  umbrage  at  what  was  d..ne  by  the  weak  ;  altl->;f  - 
would  certainly  have  resented  it  had  it  been  done  b>  the 
strong  In  the  case  of  two  states,  however,  affairs  reached 
such  a  crisis  that  we  had  to  act.  These  two  states  were 
Santo  Domingo  and  the  then  owner  of  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama,  Colombia.  .  , 

The  Santo  Domingan  case  was  the  less  important  ;   and  yet 
it  possessed  a  real  importance,  and  moreover  is  instructive  be- 
cause the  action  there  taken  should  serve  as  a  precedent  for 
\mcrican  action  in  all  similar  cases.     During  the  ear  y  years 
of  mv  administration  Santo  Domingo  was  m  its  usual  condi- 
tion'of  chronic  revolution.     There  was  always  fighting,  al- 
wavs  plundering;    and  the  successful  graspers  for  govern- 
mental power  were  always  pawning  ports  and  cust()m-houses 
or   trying   to   put    them    up    as   guarantees   for   loans.     ()t 
course  the  foreigners  who  made  loans  under  such  conditions 
demanded  exorbitant  interest,  and  if  they  were  \"'-"P^;^"\^;f 
pected  their  governments  to  stand  by  them.     So  utttr  was 
the   disorder  that  on  one  occasion   when   Admiral    Devvey 
landed  to  pay  a  call  of  ceremony  on  the  President,  he  and  nis 
partv  were  shot  at  bv  revolutionists  in  crossing  the  square, 
and  had  to  return  to  the  ships,  leaving  the  call  unpaid.      I  here 
was  default  on  the  interest  due  to  the  creditors ;_  and  tinally 
the    latter    insisted    upon    their    governments    intervening. 
Two  or  three  of  the  Kuropean  powers  w-ere  endeayoring  to 
arrange  for  concerted  action,  and  1  was  finally  notified  that 
thc-c  powers  intended  to  take  and  hold  several  of  the  sea- 
ports which  held  custom-houses.  ,.«:.,  i 
This    meant    that    unless   I   acted  at  once  1   would   find 
foreign  powers  in  partial  possession  of  Santo  Domingo;    in 
which  event  the  very  individuals  who,  in  the  actual  event 
deprecated   the   precaution   taken   to  prex  ent  such   action, 
would  have  advocated  extreme  and  violent  measures  to  undo 
the  eflfect  of  their  own  supineness.     Nine-tenths  of  wisdom 
is  to  be  wise  in  time,  and  at  the  right  time ;  and  my  whole 


MONROK   DOd'RINK  AND   PANAMA  CANAL    549 


forcijiii  policy  was  based  on  the  exercise  of  iiitellijient  fore- 
thought and  of  decisive  action  sufficientlj-  far  in  advance  of 
any  likely  crisis  to  make  it  improbable  that  we  would  run 
into  serious  trouble. 

Santo  Domingo  had  fallen  iiito  such  chaos  that  once  for 
some  weeks  there  were  two  rival  governments  in  it,  and  a 
revolution  was  being  carried  on  against  each.  At  one  period 
one  government  was  at  sea  in  a  small  gunboat,  but  still 
stoutly  maintai.ied  that  it  was  in  possession  of  the  island  rnd 
entitled  to  make  loans  and  declare  peace  or  war.  The 
situation  had  become  intolerable  by  the  time  that  I  inter- 
fered. There  was  a  naval  commander  in  the  waters  whom  I 
directed  to  j  revent  any  fighting  which  might  menace  the 
custom-houses.  He  carried  out  his  orders,  both  to  his  and 
my  satisfaction,  in  thoroughgoing  fashion.  On  one  occa- 
sion, when  an  insurgent  force  threatened  to  attack  a  town 
in  which  Americans  had  interests,  he  notified  the  com- 
manders on  both  sides  that  he  would  not  permit  any  fighting 
in  the  town,  but  that  he  would  appoint  a  certain  place  where 
they  could  meet  and  fight  it  out,  and  that  the  victors  should 
have  the  town.  They  agreed  to  meet  his  wishes,  the  fight 
came  off  at  the  appointed  place,  and  the  victor  ,  who  if  I 
remember  rightly  were  the  insurgents,  were  given  the  town. 

It  was  the  custom-houses  that  caused  the  trouble,  for  they 
offered  the  only  means  of  raising  money,  and  the  revolutions 
were  carried  on  to  get  possession  of  them.  Accordingly  I 
secured  an  agreement  with  the  governmental  authorities, 
who  for  the  moment  seemed  best  able  to  speak  for  the 
country,  by  which  these  custom-houses  were  placed  under 
American  control.  The  arrangement  was  that  we  should 
keep  order  and  prevent  any  interference  with  the  custom- 
houses or  the  places  where  they  stood,  and  should  collect 
the  revenues.  Forty-five  per  cent  of  the  re\enue  was  then 
turned  over  to  the  Santo  Domingan  Government,  and  fifty- 
five  per  cent  put  in  a  sinking  fund  in  Xew  York  for  the 
benefit  of  the  creditors.  The  arrangement  worked  in  capital 
style.  On  the  forty-five  per  cent  basis  the  Santo  Domingan 
Government  received  from  us  a  larger  sum  than  it  had  ever 
received  before  when  nominallv  all  the  revenue  went  to  it. 


Sso     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Tho  creditors  were  entirely  satisfied  with  the  arrangement, 
and  no  excuse  for  interference  by  European  powers  re- 
mained. Occasional  disturbances  occurred  in  the  island,  of 
course,  but  on  the  whole  there  ensued  a  decree  of  peace  and 
prosperity  which  the  island  had  not  known  before  for  at 
<  least  a  century. 

All  this  was  done  without  the  loss  of  a  life,  with  the  assent 
of  all  the  parties  in  interest,  and  without  subjeciing  the 
United  States  to  any  charge,  while  practically  all  of  the 
interference,  after  the  naval  commander  whom  I  have  men- 
tioned had  taken  the  initial  steps  in  preserving  order,  con- 
sisted in  putting  a  first-class  man  trained  in  our  insular  serv- 
ice at  the  head  of  .he  Santo  Domingan  customs  service. 
We  secured  peace,  we  protected  the  people  of  the  islands 
against  foreign  foes,  and  we  minimized  the  chance  of  domes- 
tic trouble.  We  satisfied  the  creditors  and  the  foreign  na- 
tions to  which  the  creditors  belonged ;  and  our  own  part  of 
the  work  was  done  with  the  utmost  efficiency  and  with  rigid 
honesty,  so  that  not  a  particle  of  scandal  was  ever  so  much 
as  hinted  at. 

Under  these  circumstances  those  who  do  not  know  the 
nature  of  the  professional  international  philanthropists  would 
suppose  that  these  apostles  of  international  peace  would 
have  been  overjoyed  with  what  we  had  done.  As  a  matter  of 
f? -t,  when  they  took  any  notice  of  it  at  all  it  was  to  denounce 
it;  and  those  American  newspapers  which  are  fondest  of 
proclaiming  themselves  the  foes  of  war  and  the  friends  of 
peace  violently  attacked  me  for  averting  war  from,  and 
br"nging  peace  to,  the  island.  They  insisted  I  had  no  power 
to  make  the  agreement,  and  demanded  the  rejection  of  the 
treaty  which  was  to  perpetuate  the  agreement.  They  were, 
of  course,  wholly  unable  to  advance  a  single  sound  reason  of 
any  kind  for  their  attitude.  I  suppose  the  real  explanation 
was  partly  their  dislike  of  me  personally,  and  unwillingness 
to  see  peace  come  through  or  national  honor  upheld  by  me ; 
and  in  the  next  place  their  sheer,  simple  devotion  to  prattle 
and  dislike  of  efficiency.  They  liked  to  have  people  come 
together  and  talk  about  peace,  or  even  sign  bits  of  paper 
with  something  about  peace  or  arbitration  on  them,  but  they 


MONROE  DOCTRINE  AND  PANAMA  CANAL    551 

took  no  interest  whatever  in  the  practical  achievement  of  a 
peace  that  told  for  good  government  and  decency  and  hon- 
esty. They  were  joined  bv  the  many  moderately  well- 
meaning  men  who  always  demand  that  a  thing  be  done, 
but  also  always  demand  that  it  be  not  done  in  the  only 
way  in  which  it  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  possible  to  do  it.  The 
men  of  this  kind  insisted  that  of  course  Santo  Domingo 
must  be  protected  and  made  to  behave  itself,  and  that  of 
course  the  Panama  Canal  must  be  dug;  but  they  insisted 
even  more  strongly  that  neither  feat  should  be  accomplished 
in  the  only  way  in  which  it  was  possible  to  accomplish  it  at  all. 
The  Constitution  did  not  explicitly  give  me  power  to  bring 
about  the  necessary  agreement  with  Santo  Domingo.  But 
the  Constitution  did  not  forbid  my  doing  what  I  did.  I  put 
the  agreement  into  effect,  and  I  continued  its  execution  for 
two  years  before  the  Senate  acted ;  and  I  would  have  con- 
tinued it  until  the  end  of  my  term,  if  necessary,  without  any 
action  by  Congress.  But  it  was  far  preferable  that  there 
should  be  action  by  Congress,  so  that  we  might  be  proceeding 
under  a  treaty  which  was  the  law  of  the  land  and  not  merely 
by  a  direction  of  the  Chief  Executive  which  would  lapse 
when  that  particular  executive  left  office.  I  therefore  did 
my  best  to  get  the  Senate  to  ratify  what  I  hrd  done. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  about  it.  With  the 
exception  of  one  or  two  men  like  Clark  of  Arkansas,  the 
Democratic  Senators  acted  in  that  spirit  of  unworthy  par- 
tisanship which  subordinates  national  interest  to  some  fan- 
cied partisan  advantage,  and  they  were  cordially  backed  by  all 
that  portion  of  the  press  which  took  its  inspiration  from 
Wall  Street,  and  was  violently  hostile  to  the  Administration 
because  of  its  attitude  towards  great  corporations.  Most 
of  the  Republican  Senators  under  the  lead  of  Senator  Lodge 
stood  by  me  ;  but  some  of  them,  of  the  more  "conservative" 
or  reactionary  type,  who  were  already  growing  hostile  to  me 
on  the  trust  question,  first  proceeded  to  sneer  at  what  had 
been  done,  and  to  raise  all  kinds  of  meticulous  objections, 
which  they  themselves  finally  abandoned,  but  which  fur- 
nished an  excuse  on  which  the  opponents  of  the  treaty  could 
hang  adverse  action.     Unfortunately  the  Senators  who  were 


552     THKODORE    RDOSFAKLT  -  AN   AITOBIOGRAPHY 

most  apt  to  speak  of  tho  digrity  of  the  Senate,  and  to  insist 
upon  its   importance,   were  tlie  very  ones  wlio    were    also 
most  apt  to  try  to  make  display  of  this  dignity  and  mipor- 
tance  by  thwarting'  the  public  business.     This  case  was  typi- 
cal.    The    Republicans    in    question    spoke   against    certam 
provisions  of  the  proposed  treaty.     They  then,  having  in- 
geniouslv  provided  ammunition  for  the  foes  of  the  treaty, 
abandoned  their  opposition  to  it,  and  the  Democrats  stepped 
into  the   position   they  had   abandoned.      Knough   Republi- 
cans  wer<'   absent   to  prevent   the  securing  of  a   two-thirds 
vote  for  the  treaty,  and  the  Senate  adjourned  w^ithou*  any 
action  at  all,  and  with  a  feeling  of  entire  self-satisfaction  at 
having  left  the  countrv  in  the  position  of  assuming  a  re- 
sponsibility and   then   failing  to  fulfil   it.     Apparently  the 
Senators  in  question  felt  that  in  some  way  they  liad  upheld 
their  dignitv.     All  that  they  had  really  done  was   i.     shirk 
their  duty.  '  Somebodv  had  to  do  that  duty,  and  accordingly 
I    did    it.'     I    went    aliead    and    administered    the   proposed 
treaty  anvhow,  considering  it  as  a  simple  agreement  on  the 
part  'of   the   Kxecutive  which    would    be    converted   into    a 
treaty  whenever  the  Senate  acted.     After  a  couple  of  years 
the  Senate  did   a-'t,   having  previously   made  some   utterly 
unimportant  changes  which  I  ratified  and  persuaded  Santo 
Domingo  to  ratify.      In  all  its  history  Santo  Domingo  has 
had  nothing  happen  to  it  as  fortunate  as  this  treaty,  and 
the  passing  of  it   saved   the  United  States  from  having  to 
face   serious   diihculties   with   one  or   m(_>re   foreign   powers. 
It  cannot  in  the  long  run  prove  possible  for  the  I  nited 
States  to  protect  delinquent  American  nations  from  punish- 
ment  for   the   non-performance   of   their   duties    unless   she 
undertakes    to    make    them    perform    their   duties.      People 
may  theorize  about  this  as  much  as  the\-  wish,  but  whenever 
a    sufficiently    strong    outside    nation    becomes    sufficiently 
aggrieved,   then   either  that    nation   will   act   or  the  United 
States  Ciovernment  itself  will  have  to  act.  _  We  were  face  to 
face  at  one  period  of  my  administration  with  this  condition 
of  affairs  in  X'enezuela,  wiien  Ciermany,  rather  ieebls  backed 
by   England,   undertook   a   blockade   against   X'enezucla   to 
make  Venezuela  adopt  the  German  and  English  view  about 


MONROE   DOCTRINE  AND   PANAMA   CANAL    553 


certain  agreements.  There  was  real  danger  that  the  block- 
ade would  finally  result  in  Cjermany's  taking  possession  of 
certain  cities  or  custom-houses.  I  succeeded,  however, 
in  getting  all  the  parties  in  interest  to  submit  their  cases  to 
the  Hague  Tribunal. 

By  far  tlie  nKJSt  important  action  I  took  in  foreign  affairs 
during  the  time  I  was  President  .  lated  to  the  Panama 
Canal.  Here  again  there 
was  much  accusation  about 
my  having  acted  in  an  "un- 
constitutional" manner  —  a 
position  which  can  be  upheld 
only  if  Jefferson's  action  in 
acquiring  Louisiana  be  also 
treated  as  unconstitutional ; 
and  at  different  stages  of 
the  affair  believers  in  a  do- 
nothing  policy  denounced 
me  as  having  "usurped 
authority"  --  which  meant, 
that  when  nobody  else  could 
or  would  exercise  efficient 
authoritv,  I  exercised  it. 

During  the  nearly  four 
hundred  years  that  luid 
elapsed  since  Balboa  crossed 
the  Isthmus,  there  had  been 
a  good  deal  of  talk  about 
building  an  Isthmus  canal, 
and  there  had  been  various 
discussions  of  the  subject  and  negotiations  about  it  in 
Washington  for  the  previous  half  century.  So  far  it  had 
all  resulted  mereh'  in  conversation;  and  the  time  had  come 
when  unless  somebody  was  prepared  to  act  with  decision 
we  would  have  to  resign  <)urselves  to  at  least  half  a  century 
of  further  conversation.  I'nder  the  Ha\-I'auncefote  Treaty 
signed  shortly  after  I  became  President,  and  thanks  tr*  our 
negotiations  with  the  French  Panama  Company,  the  I'nited 
States  at  last  acquired  a  possession,  S(,)  far  as  Europe  was 


(■np.\Pii:lit  h>-  I'riiltTWDuil  :iii(l  I'tulcrwiHiJ. 

Col.dNKI,    (i.    \V.    (loi.TlIM.S. 


554     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

concerned,  which  warranted  her  in  immediately  undertak- 
ing the  task.     It  remained  to  decide  where  the  canal  should 
be,  whether  along  the  line  already  pioneered  by  the  French 
company  in  Panama,  or  in  Nicaragua.     Panama  belonged 
to  the  Republic  of  Colombia.     Nicaragua  bid  eager  y  for  the 
privilege  of  having  the  United  States  build  the  canal  through 
her  territory.     As  long  as  it  was  doubtful  which  route  we 
would  decide  upon,  Colombia  extended  every  promise  ot 
friendly  cooperation:    at  the    Pan-American    Congress   in 
Mexico  her  delegate  joined  in  the  unanimous  vote  which 
requested  the  United  States  forthwith  to  build  the  canal ; 
and  at  her  eager  request  we  negotiated  the  Hay-Herran 
Treaty  with  her,  which  gave  us  the  right  to  build  the  canal 
across  Panama.     A  board  of  experts  sent  to  the  Isthmus  had 
reported  that  this  route  was  better  than  the  Nicaragua  route 
and  that  it  would  be  well  to  build  the  canal  over  it  provided 
we  could  purchase  the  rights  of  the  French  company  for  forty 
million  dollars  ;  but  that  otherwise  they  would  advise  taking 
the  Nicaragua  route.     Ever  since  1846  we  had  had  a  treaty 
with  the  power  then  in  control  of  the  Isthmus,  the  Republic 
of  New  Granada,  the  predecessor  of  the  Republic  of  Colombia 
and  of  the  present  Republic  of  Panama,  by  which  treaty  the 
United  States  was  guaranteed  free  and  open  right  ot  way 
across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  by  any  mode  of  communica- 
tion that  might  be  constructed,  while  in  return  our  Govern- 
ment guaranteed  the  perfect  neutrality  of  the  Isthmus  with 
a  view  to  the  preservation  of  free  transit. 

For  nearly  fifty  years  we  had  asserted  the  right  to  prevent 
the  closing  of  this  highway  of  commerce.  Secretary  of  State 
Cass  in  1858  officially  stated  the  American  position  as  follows  : 
"Sovereignty  has  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights,  and  none 
of  these  local  governments,  even  if  administered  with  more 
regard  to  the  just  demands  t)f  other  nations  than  they  have 
been  would  be  permitted,  in  a  spirit  of  Eastern  isolation,  to 
close  the  gates  of  intercourse  of  the  great  highways  of  the 
world,  and  justify  the  act  by  the  pretension  that  these 
avenues  of  trade  and  travel  belong  to  them  and  that  they 
choose  to  shut  them,  or,  what  is  almost  equivalent,  to  en- 
cumber them  with  such  unjust  relations  as  would  prevent 
their  general  use." 


MONROE  DOCTRINE  AND  PANAMA  CANAL    555 

We  had  again  and  again  been  forced  to  intervene  to  pro- 
tect the  transit  across  the  Isthmus,  and  the  intervention  was 
frequently  at  the  request  of  Colombia  herself.  The  effort 
to  build  a  canal  by  private  capital  had  been  made  under 
De  Lesseps  and  had  resulted  in  lamentable  failure.  Every 
serious  proposal  to  build  the  canal  in  such  manner  had  been 
abandoned.  The  United  States  had  repeatedly  announced 
that  we  would  not  permit  it  to  be  built  or  controlled  by  any 
old-world  government.  Colombia  was  utterly  impotent  to 
build  it  herself.  Under  these  circumstances  it  had  become 
a  matter  of  imperative  obligation  that  we  should  build  it 
ourselves  without  further  delay. 

I  took  final  action  in  1903.  During  the  preceding  fifty- 
three  years  the  Governments  of  New  Granada  and  of  its 
successor,  Colombia,  had  been  in  a  constant  state  of  fiux; 
and  the  State  of  Panama  had  sometimes  been  treated  as  al- 
most independent,  in  a  loose  Federal  league,  and  sometimes 
as  the  mere  property  of  the  Government  at  Bogota;  and 
there  had  been  innumerable  appeals  to  arms,  sometimes 
for  adequate,  sometimes  for  inadequate,  reasons.  The  fol- 
lowing is  a  partial  list  of  the  disturbances  on  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama  during  the  period  in  question,  as  reported  to  us 
by  our  consuls.  It  is  not  possible  to  give  a  complete  list, 
and  some  of  the  reports  that  speak  of  "revolutions"  must 
mean  unsuccessful  revolutions : 

May  22,  1850. —Outbreak;  two  Americans  killed. 
War  vessel  demanded  to  quell  outbreak. 

October,  1850.  —  Revolutionary  plot  to  bring  about 
independence  of  the  Isthmus. 

July  22,  1851.  —  Revolution  in  four  Southern  provinces. 

November  14,  1851.  —  Outbreak  at  Chagres.  Man- 
of-war  requested  for  Chagres. 

June  27,  1853.  —  Insurrection  at  Bogota,  and  consequent 
disturbance  on  Isthmus.     War  vessel  demanded. 

May  23,  1854. —  Political  disturbances.  War  vessel 
requested. 

June  28,  1854.  —  Attempted  revolution. 

October  24,  1854.  -  Independence  of  Isthmus  demanded 
by  provincial  legislature. 


!,« 


M 


33 


6     THEODORE   ROOSIA  KLT  -  AX   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


April,  1S56.   -  Riot,  and  massacre  of  Americans. 

Mav  4,  rs:;6.       Riot. 

May  iS,  1S56.        Riot. 

June  T,,  iS,6.        Riot. 

October  2,  1S56.  Conflict  between  two  native  parties. 
United  States  force  landed. 

December   iS,    185S.        .Attempted  secession  of  Panama. 

.\pril,  1859.    -  Rit)ts. 

September,  1S60.     -  Outbreak. 

October  4,  1S60.  -  Landing  of  United  States  forces  in 
consequence. 

May  23,  1S61.  —  Interventi(jn  of  the  L  nited  States  forces 
required,  by  intendente. 

October  '2,  1861.  -     Insurrection  and  civil  war. 

.•\pril    4,    1862.  —Measures    to    prevent    rebels    crossing 

Isthmus. 

■  Mosquera's  troops  refused  admittance 


June  13,  1862 
to  Panama. 

March,  1865. 
landed. 

.\ugust,  1865. 
Panama. 

March,  1866. 


Revolution,    and   United    States    troops 
Riot^- ;    unsuccessful  attempt  to  invade 


^,^„,^..,  Unsuccessful  revolution. 

.\pril,    1867.  —  Attempt   to  overthrow  Government. 
August,  1867.  —  .\ttempt  at  revolution. 
July     5,     1868.  —  Revolution;      provisional    government 
inaugurated. 

.\ugust  29,  1868.  —  Revolution;    provisional  government 

overthrowr 

.\pril,  ■      '—  Revolution ;      followed     apparently     by 

counter  revcnUtion. 

April,  1873.    -  Revolution  and  civil  war  which  lasted  to 

October,  1 87  V  ... 

August,  1876.  —Civil  war  which  lasted  until  April,  1877. 

July,  1878.  —  Rebellion. 

December,  1878.     -  Revolt. 

April,  1879.  -    Revolution. 

June,  1879.  -  Revolution. 

"March,  1883.  —  Riot. 


MOXROK   DOCTRIXK  AND   PANAMA  CANAL    557 

May,  1883.     -  Riot. 

June,  1884.  —  Revolutionary  attempt. 

December,  1884.  —  Revolutionary  attempt. 

January,  1885.  —  Revolutionary  disturbances. 

Klarch,  1885.  —  Revolution. 

April,  1887.  —  Disturbance  on  Panama  Railroad. 

November,   1887.  —  Disturbance  on  line  of  canal. 

January,  1889.        Riot. 

January,  1895.        Revolution  wiiicli  lasted  until  April. 

March,  1895.  —  Incendiary  attempt. 

October,  1899.        Re\<)lution. 

Februar)',  1900,  to  July,  1900.        Revolution. 

January,  I90r.  —  Revolution. 

July,  1901.    -  Revolutionary  disturbances. 

September,  1901.  —  City  of  Colon  taken  by  rebels. 

March,  1902.  —  Revoluticjnary  disturbances. 

July,  1902.  —  Revolution. 

The  above  is  only  a  partial  list  of  the  revolutions,  rebel- 
lions, insurrections,  riots,  and  other  outbreaks  that  occurred 
during  the  period  in  question  ;  yet  they  number  fifty-three 
for  the  fifty-three  years,  and  they  showed  a  tendency  to 
increase,  rather  than  decrease,  in  numbers  and  intensity. 
One  of  them  lasted  for  nearly  three  years  before  it  was  quelled  ; 
another  for  nearly  a  year.  In  short,  the  experience  of  over 
half  a  century  had  shown  Colombia  to  be  utterly  incapable 
of  keeping  order  on  the  Isthmus.  Only  the  active  interfer- 
ence of  the  United  States  had  enabled  her  to  preserve  so 
much  as  a  semblance  of  sovereignty.  Had  it  not  been  for 
the  exercise  by  the  United  States  of  the  police  power  in 
her  interest,  her  connection  with  the  Isthmus  would  have 
been  sundered  long  before  it  was.  In  1856,  in  i860,  in  1873, 
in  1885,  in  1901,  and  again  in  1902,  sailors  and  marines 
from.  I'nited  States  warships  were  forced  to  land  in  order  to 
patrol  the  Istimuis,  to  protect  life  and  property,  and  to  see 
that  the  transit  across  the  Isthmus  was  kept  open.  In  1861, 
in  1862,  in  1885,  and  in  1900,  the  Colombian  Government 
asked  that  the  United  States  (Kivernment  would  land  troops 
to  protect  Colombian  interests  and  maintain  order  on  the 


558     THEODORE  ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Isthmus     The   people   of   Panama    during   the   preceding 

wen'y  years   hL  'three   times   sought  to  estabhsh   the.r 

independence  by  revolution  or  secession  -  in  1885,  in  189S, 

'"The  peculiar  relations  of  the  United  States  toward  the 
Isthmus',  and  the  acquiescence  by  Colombia  in  acts  which 
were  qu  te  incompatible  with  the  theory  of  her  having  an 
Xolute  and   unconditioned   sovereignty  on   the    Isthmus, 


Drawing  for  Punch  by  E.  T.  Heed. 

"  Kindred  Spirits  of  the  Strenuous  Life." 
(Kaiser  WOhelm  II  and  President  Roosevelt.) 

are  illustrated  by  the  following  three  telegrams  between  two 
of  our  naval  officers  whose  ships  were  at  the  Isthmu  ,  and 
the  Secretarv  of  the  Navy  on  the  occasion  of  the  hrst  out- 
brea-Ta 'occurred  on  the  Isthmus  after  I  became  President 
(a  year  before  Panama  became  independent) : 

September  12,  1902- 
Ranger,  Panama: 

United  States  guarantees  perfect  neutrality  of  Isthmus 
and  that  a  free  transit  from  sea  to  sea  be  not  interrupted  or 
embarrassed.  ...  Any  transportation  of  troops  which 
might  contravene  these  provisions  of  treaty  should  not  be 
Tanctoncd  by  you,  nor  should  use  of  road  be  permitted 
wS  might  convert  the  line  of  transit  into  theater  of  hos- 
tility. Moody. 


MONROE  DOCI'RINE  AND  PANAMA  CANAL    559 

Colon,  September  20,  1902. 
Secretary  Navy,  Washington  : 

Everything  is  conceded.  The  United  States  guards  and 
guarantees  traffic  and  the  line  of  transit.  To-day  I  per- 
mitted the  exchange  of  Colombian  troops  from  Panama  to 
Colon,  about  1000  men  each  way,  the  troops  without  arms 
in  trains  guarded  by  American  naval  force  in  the  same 
manner  as  other  passengers ;  arms  and  ammunition  in 
separate  train,  guarded  also  by  naval  force  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  other  freight. 

McLean. 


m 


Panama,  October  3,  1902. 
Secretary  Navy, 

Washington,  D.C. : 

Have  sent  this  communication  to  the  American  Consul  at 
Panama : 

"Inform  Gov^ernor,  while  trains  running  under  United 
States  protection,  I  must  decline  transportation  any  com- 
batants, ammunition,  arms,  which  might  cause  interruption 
to  traffic  or  convert  line  of  transit  into  theater  hostilities." 

Casey. 

When  the  Government  in  nominal  control  of  the  Isthmus 
continually  besought  American  interference  to  protect  the 
"rights"  it  could  not  itself  protect,  and  permitted  our 
Government  to  transport  Colombian  troops  unarmed,  under 
protection  of  our  own  armed  men,  while  the  Colombian 
arms  and  ammunition  came  in  a  separate  train,  it  is  obvious 
that  the  Colombian  "sovereignty"  was  of  such  a  character 
as  to  warrant  our  insisting  that  inasmuch  as  it  only  existed 
because  of  our  protection  there  should  be  in  requital  a  sense 
of  tlie  obligations  that  the  acceptance  of  this  protection 
implied. 

Meanwhile  Colombia  was  under  a  dictatorship.  In 
i8g8  M.  A.  Sanclamente  was  elec'^^'d  President,  and  J.  M. 
Maroquin   Vice-President,   of  the   Republic   of   Colombia. 


56o     THEODORE   ROOSE\  ELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

On   luly  ^i,  1900,  the  \icc-Prcsident,  Maroquin,  executed 
a  -coup  d'Ctat"   by   seizing  the  person  of  the    President 
Sanclamente,  and  imprisoning  him  at  a  place  a  few  miles  out 
„f  Bogota.     Maroquin  thereupon  dechired  himself  possessed 
of  the  executive  power  because  of  "the  absence  of  the  1  resi- 
j^^.,jt"  _  a  delightful  touch  of  unconscious  humor.     He  then 
issued  a  decree  that  public  order  was  disturbed,  and,  upon 
that   ground,   assumed   to   himself  legislative   power  under 
aiKJther  provision  of  the  constitution ;   that  is   having  him- 
self disturbed  the  public  order,  he  alleged  the  disturbance  as 
a    justification    for    seizing    absolute    po\yer.     Thenceforth 
Maroquin,  without  the  aid  of  any  legislative  body,  ruled  as 
a   dictator,   combining   the   supreme   executive,    legislative, 
civil,  and  military  authorities,  in  the  so-called  Republic  ot 
Colombia.     The  ''absence"  of  Sanclamente  from  the  capi- 
tal became  permanent  by  his  death  in  prison  in  the  year 
100-      When   the   people  of   Panama   declared   their  inde- 
pendence in  November,  1903,  no  Congress  had  sat  in  Colom- 
bia since  the  year  189S,  except  the  special  Congress  called  by 
Maroquin  to  reject   the  canal   treaty,  and  which  dm  reject 
it  bv  a  unanimous  vote,  and  adjourned  without    egislating 
on  anv  other  subject.     The  constitution  of  1886  had  taken 
away  'from  Panama  the  power  of  self-government  ano  vested 
it  in  Colombia.     The  coup  d'Hat  of  Maroquin  took  away 
from  Colombia  herself  the  power  of  government  and  vested 
it  in  an  irresponsible  dictator. 

Consideration  of  the  above  facts  ought  to  be  enough  to 
show  anv  human  being  that  we  were  not  dealing  with  normal 
conditions  on  the  Isthmus  and  in  Colombia.  \\  e  were 
dealing  with  the  government  of  an  irresponsible  alien  dicta- 
tor and  with  a  condition  of  affairs  on  the  Isthmus  itself 
which  was  marked  by  one  uninterrupted  series  of  outbreaks 
and  revolutions.  As  for  the  "consent  of  the  governed 
theorv,  that  absolutelv  justified  our  action;  the  people  on 
the  Isthmus  were  the  "governed"  ;  they  were  governed  by 
Colombia,  without  their  consent,  and  they  unanimously 
repudiated  the  Colombian  government,  and  demanded 
that  the  United  States  build  the  canal. 

I  had  done  everything  possible,  personally  and  through 


MONROE    DOCTRINK   AND   PANAMA   CANAL    561 

Secrctai)  Hay,  to  persuade  tin-  Colombian  CJovc-rnmcnt 
to  keep  faith.  Ituier  tin-  Hay-Pauncefote  Treaty,  it  was 
explicitly  provided  that  the  li'iited  States  should  build  the 
canal,  should  control,  police  and  protect  it,  and  keep  it  open 
to  the  vessels  of  all  nations  on  equal  terms.  We  had  as- 
sumed the  position  of  guarantor  of  the  canal,  including,  of 
course,  the  building  of  the  canal,  and  of  its  peaceful  use  by 
all  the  \yorld.  The  enterprise  was  recognized  everywhere  as 
responding  to  an  international  need.  It  was  a  mere  travesty 
on  justice  to  treat  the  government  in  possession  of  the 
Isthmus  as  having  the  right  —  which  Secretary  Cass  forty- 
five  years  before  had  so  emphatically  repudiated  —  to 
close  the  gates  of  intercourse  on  one  of  the  great  highways  of 
the  world.  When  we  submitted  to  Colombia  the  Hay- 
Herran  Treaty,  it  had  been  settled  that  the  time  for  delay, 
the  time  for  permitting  any  government  of  anti-social  char- 
acter, or  of  imperfect  development,  to  bar  the  work,  had 
passed.     The    United    States    had    assumed    in    connection 


with  the  canal  certain  responsibilities  not  only  to  its  own 
people  but  to  the  civilized  world  which  imperatively  de- 
manded that  there  should  be  no  further  delay  in  beginning 
the  work.  The  Hay-Hcrran  Treaty,  if  it  erred  at  all,  erred 
in  being  ovcrgenerous  toward  Colombia.  The  people  of 
Panama  were  delighted  with  the  treaty,  and  the  President 
of  Colombia,  who  embodied  in  his  own  person  the  entire  gov- 
ernment of  Colombia,  had  authorized  the  treaty  to  be  made. 
But  after  the  treaty  had  been  made  the  Colombia  Govern- 
ment thought  it  had  the  matter  in  its  own  hands :  and  the 
further  thought,  equally  wicked  and  foolish,  came  into  the 
heads  of  the  people  in  control  at  Bogota  that  they  would 
seize  the  French  Company  at  the  end  of  another  year  and 
take  for  themselves  the  forty  million  dollars  which  the  United 
States  had  agreed  to  pay  the  Panama  Canal  Company. 

President  Maroquin,  through  his  Minister,  had  agreed  to 
the  Hay-Herran  Treaty  in  January,  1903.  He  had  the 
absolute  power  of  an  unconstitutional  dictator  to  keep  his 
promise  or  break  it.  He  determined  to  break  it.  To 
furnish  himself  an  excuse  for  breaking  it  he  devised  the  plan 
of  summoning  a  Congress  especially  called  to  reject  the  canal 


-J  i;;il 


562      niKODORK    KOOSIAI  I/I  -AN    AlTOliUK^.RAPHY 

maty.  'I'liis  llic  Congress  a  Ct)ngivss  of  mere  pup{xt> 
ilid,  with. .Ill  ;,  disstiuiuK  vt.ti';  and  the  puppets  ad- 
joimud  h.rlhuith  without  U-iiishitiiiK  on  any  other  subject. 
'The  fact  tliat  this  was  a  mere  sliam,  and  that  the  I  resident 
had  entire  power  to  confirni  iiis  own  treaty  and  act  on  it  if  he 
desired,  was  shown  as  soon  as  the  revolution  took  phice,  for 


•Ihc  >i:inilunl  nrlKiiial  ilruwhiK  ((ir  ru,i.h  liv  V.    T   Kifil,  N.iv  .  l!i(»4 


C-oNHs(Arii.  i.v  THK  Bfrmn  Police.    What  ark  tjii  v  afraii.  ..f?    Is  it  this? 

•n„.  B.rlii,  Poli.v  havo  ...nli-.,itMl  fr..m  thu  numliers  ,.f  fumh  ..f  \o\.  .(..  thi-  paKe.on- 
laWinL:  til  ■  ,>ri,,itur  ot  tho  i;m|.i-ryr  William  and  PrcsMcMt  RoostAvIl  cntitl.',! 
•■  KiiviriKl   Spirits  (.f  ilu-  Sir.-mi  ni:-  I.iti." 

on  November  6  (General   Reyes  of  Colombia  addressed  the 
American  Minister  at  Bogota,  on  behalf  of  President  Maro- 
quin,  saving  that  "if  the  (Government  of  the  railed  States 
would  hind  troops  and  restore  the  Colombian  sovereignty 
the    Colombian    President    wt)uld    "declare    martial    law; 


MONKOI.   IX)C  IRINK   AM)    PANAMA   CANAL     -^b} 

and,  by  \irliii'  of  vi-sti-d  fniistiiutioiial  autliority,  wlicii 
public  indcr  is  disturbed,  WDuld  approve  by  dct  rci-  llu- 
ratirttatioii  of  tlic  canal  treaty  as  sijjued  ;  or,  if  the  (lovern- 
ineiit  of  tlie  I  iiitetl  St:iti-s  prefers,  would  call  an  extra  session 
of  tile  Congress  witli  new  and  friiMidly  members  next 
May  to  approve  the  treaty."  Tliis,  of  course,  is  proof  posi- 
tive that  tlu'  Coloml>ian  dictator  had  used  iiis  Conirress  as  a 
mere  sliield,  and  a  sjuui  shit'ld  at  that,  and  it  shows  how 
utterly  useless  it  would  ha\i'  bei'n  further  to  trust  his  jjood 
faith  in  the  matter. 

When,  in  Au^nist,  I'p^,  I  became  coiiviiicecl  liiat  Colombia 
intended  to  repudiate  the  treaty  made  the  preceding  January, 
under  covi'r  of  securint'  its  rejection  by  the  Colombian 
Legislature,  I  bi'i;aii  carefullv  to  consider  what  should  be 
done.  Kv  m\  direction  Secretarv  lla\,  pers(»nall>'  and 
throujrh  'he  Minister  at  liogota,  ref>eatedl)  warned  Colomlna 
that  gra\e  coiisequetici's  mi^'ht  follow  lur  rejection  of  the 
treaty.     The  possibility  of  ratification  not   wholly  pass 

awav  until  the  cli;se  of  the  session  of  t,  Colombian  Con- 
gress on  the  last  day  of  October.  Ttiere  would  then  be  two 
possibilities.  One  was  that  I'anama  would  remain  quiet. 
In  that  case  I  was  prepared  to  recommeiul  to  Cimgress  that 
we  should  at  once  occup\  the  Isthmus  anyhow,  and  prcu  i-d 
to  dig  the  canal  ;  and  I  had  drawn  out  a  draft  of  my  message 
to  tliis  effect. '  But  from  the  information  1  received,  I 
deemed  it  likel\-  that  there  would  be  a  revolution  in  Panama 
as  soon  as  the  Colombian  Congress  adjourned  without 
ratifying  the  treaty,  for  the  entire  population  of  Panama  felt 
that  the  immediate  building  of  the  canal  was  of  vital 
concern  to  their  welt-being.  Correspondents  of  the  different 
newspapers  on  thelsthmus  had  sent  to  their  respective  papers 
widely  published  forecasts  indicating  that  there  would  be  a 
revolution  in  such  event. 

Moreover,  on  October  i^,  at  the  request  of  Lieutenant- 
(leneral  '^'oung.  Captain  Humphrey  and  Lieutenant  Murphy, 
two  army  officers  who  had  returned  from  the  Isthmus,  saw 
me  and  told  me  that  then-  would  unquestionably  be  a  revolu- 

'  Sec  .il'jH-liJix  al  okI  "f  llii^  liiJl'ln. 


'  is 


5r,4     TIIEODORK   RCX)SIiV  ELT  -  AN   Al  TOBKK'.RAPHY 

tion  on  the  Isthmus,  that  the  people  were  unanimous  in 
their  criticism  of  the  Bovjota  (lovernment  and  their  disgust 
over  the  failure  of  that  Ciovernment  to  ratify  the  treaty ; 
and  that  the  revolution  would  probably  take  place  immedi- 
ately after  the  adjournment  of  the  Colombian  Congress. 
They  did  not  believe  that  it  would  be  before  October  20, 
but  they  were  confident  that  it  would  certainly  come  at  the 
end  of  October  or  immediatelv  afterwards,  when  the  Colom- 
bian Congress  had  adjourned.  Accordingly  I  directed  the 
Navy  Department  to  station  various  ships  within  easy 
reach  of  the  Isthmus,  to  be  ready  to  act  in  the  event  of  need 

arising.  vt  ■  1 

These  ships  were  barely  in  time.  On  .November  3  the 
revolution  occurred.  Practically  everybody  on  the  Isth- 
mus, including  all  the  Colombian  troops  that  were  already 
stationed  there,  joined  in  the  revolution,  and  there  was 
no  bloodshed.  But  on  that  same  day  four  hundred  new 
Colombian  troops  were  landi  d  at  Colon.  Fortunately,  the 
gunboat  Nashvilh;  under  Commander  Hubbard,  reached 
Colon  almost  immediately  afterwards,  and  when  the  com- 
mander of  the  Colombian  forces  threatened  the  lives  and 
property  of  the  American  citizens,  including  women  and 
children,  in  Colon,  Commander  Hubbard  landed  a  few 
score  sailors  and  marines  to  protect  them.  By  a  mixture 
of  firmness  and  tact  he  not  only  prevented  any  assault  on 
our  citizens,  but  persuaded  the  Colombian  commander  to 
reiimbark  his  troops  for  Cartagena.  On  the  Pacific  side  a 
Colombian  gunboat  shelled  the  City  of  Panama,  with  the 
result  of  killing  one  Chinaman  —  the  only  life  lost  in  the 
whole  affair. 

No  one  connected  with  the  American  Ciovernment  had 
any  part  in  preparing,  inciting,  or  encouraging  the  revolu- 
tion, and  except  for  the  reports  of  our  military  and  naval 
officers,  which  I  forwarded  to  Congress,  no  one  connected 
with  the  Government  had  any  previous  knowledge  concern- 
ing the  proposed  revolution,  except  such  as  was  accessible 
to  any  person  who  read  the  newspapers  and  kept  abicast  of 
current  questions  and  current  affairs.  By  the  unanimous 
action  of  its  people,  and  without  the  firing  of  a  shot,  the  slate 


MONROF.   nOCTRINF.   AND  PANAMA  CANAL    5^5 


of    Panama   lU'cland   themselves   an   iiidepcndent    republic. 
The  time  for  hesitation  on  our  pari  had  passed. 

My  belief  then  was,  and  the  events  that  have  occurred 
since  have  more  than  ju.uified  it,  that  from  the  staiidpoint 
of  the  United  States  it  was  imperative,  not  only  f()r  civil  but 
foi    military  reasons,  that  there  should  be  the  immediate 
establishment  of  easy  and  speedy   communication  by  sea 
between  the  .Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,     These  reasons  were 
not  of  convenience  only,  but  of  vital  necessity,  and  did  not 
admit   of  indefinite  delay.     The   action  (>/  Colombia   had 
shown  not  only  that  the  delay  would  be  indefinite,  but  that 
she  intended  to  confiscate  the  property  and  rights  of  the 
French     Panama    Canal    Company.     The    report    of    the 
Panama    ^anal    Commiuee   of   the   Colombian   Senate   on 
October  i      1903,  on  the  proposed  treaty  with  the  United 
States,  proposed  that  all  consideration  of  the  matter  should 
be  postponed  until  October  31,  '^p^.  when  the  next  Colom- 
bian Congress  would  have  convened,  because  by  that  time 
the  new  Congress  would  be  in  condition  to  determine  whether 
through  lapse  of  time  the  French  company  had  not  forfeited 
its  property  and   rights.     "When  that   time  arrives,"  the 
report   significantly  declared,  "the    Republic,  without   any 
impediment,  will  be  able  to  contract  and  will  be  in  more 
clear,  more  definite  and  more  advantageous  possession,  both 
legally  and  materially."     The  naked  meaning  of  this  was 
that  Colombia  proposed  to  wait  a  year,  and  then  enforce  a 
forfeiture  of  the  rights  and  property  of  the  French  Panama 
Company,  so  as  to  secure  the  forty  million  dollars  our  Govern- 
ment had  authorized  as  payment  to  this  company.     If  we 
had  sat  supine,  this  would  doubtless  iiave  meant  that  France 
would  have  interfered  to  protect  the  company,  and  we  should 
then  have  had  on  the  Isthmus,  not  the  company,  but  France; 
and   the   gravest    international    complications    might    have 
ensued.     Every  consideration  of  international  morality  an  ' 
expediency,  of  duty  to  the  Panama  people,  and  of  satisfa 
tion  of  our  own  national  interests  and  honor,  bade  us  take 
immediate    action.     I    recognized    Panama    forthwith    on 
behalf  of  the  United  States,  and  practically  all  the  countries 
of  the  world  immediately  followed  suit.     The  State  Depart- 


31 


I 


;(.(,      IIIKODORK    R()OSK\i:i;i"       AX    AiroiMOC.RAPllV 


iiunt  iimiicJiattly  m.u<>tiaicd  a  canal  trcal)  willi  I  lie-  new 
kc'public.  One  of  the-  foremost  iiK-ii  in  securing  the  inde- 
pendence of  Panama,  and  the  treaty  which  authorized  th'^ 
United  States  forthwith  to  build  the  canal,  was  M.  Philippe 
Bunau-\arilla. an  eminent  French  engineer  formerlyassociated 
with  De  I-essepsaiid  then  livingon  the  Isthmus  ;  his  services  to 
civilization  were  notable,  and  deserve  the  fullest  recognition. 
From  the  beginning  to  the  end  our  course  was  straight- 
forward and  in  absolute  accord  with  the  highest  of  standards 
of  international  moralit\.  Criticism  of  it  can  come  only 
from  misinformation,  or  else  from  a  sentimentality  which 
represents  both  mental  weakness  and  a  moral  twist.  T(J 
have  acted  otherwise  than  I  did  would  have  been  on  my 
part  betrayal  of  the  interests  of  the  United  States,  indiffer- 
ence to  the  interests  of  Panama,  and  recreancy  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  World  at  large.  Colombia  had  forfeited  every 
claim  to  consideration;  indeed,  this  is  not  stating  the  case 
strongK  enough:  she  had  so  acted  that  yielding  to  her 
would  iia\i'  meant  on  our  part  that  culpable  form  of  weak- 
ness which  stands  on  a  level  with  wickedness.  As  for  me  per- 
sonally, if  1  had  hesitated  to  act,  and  had  not  in  advance 
tliscounted  the  clamor  of  those  Americans  who  have  made  a 
fetish  of  disloyalty  to  their  country,  I  should  have  esteemed 
mvself  as  deserving  a  place  in  Dante's  inferno  beside  the 
faint-hearted  cleric  who  was  guilty  of  "il  gran  rifiuto." 
'Hie  facts  1  have  gi\en  above  are  mere  bald  statements  from 
the  record.  They  show  that  from  the  beginning  there  had 
been  acceptance  of  our  right  to  insist  on  free  transit,  in 
whatever  form  was  best,  across  the  Isthmus;  and  that  to- 
wards the  end  there  had  been  a  no  less  universal  feeling  that 
it  was  our  di:t\-  to  the  world  to  provide  this  transit  in  the 
shape  of  a  caiuil  the  resolution  of  the  Pan-.\merican  Con- 
gress was  practically  a  mandate  to  this  eflFect.  Colombia 
was  then  under  a  one-man  government,  a  dictatorship, 
founded  on  usurpation  of  absolute  and  irresponsible  power. 
She  eagerly  pressed  us  to  enter  into  an  agreement  with  her, 
as  lone  as  there  was  anv  chance  of  our  going  to  the  alterna- 
tive route  through  Nicaragua.  When  she  thought  we 
were  committed,  she  n'fused  to  fulfil  the  agreement,  with  the 


MONROE   DOCTRr    >   AND   PANAMvV  CANAL    567 

avowed  hope  of  seizing  the  French  company's  property  for 
nothing  and  thereby  holding  us  up.     This  was  a  bit  of  pure 
bandit  morality.     It  would  have  achieved  its  purpose  had  I 
possessed  as  weak,  moral  fiber  as  those  of  my  critics  who 
announced  that  1  ought  to  have  confined  my  action  to  feeble 
scolding  and   temporizing  until   the  opportunity  for  action 
passed.      I  did  not  lift  my  finger  to  incite  the  revolutionists. 
The  right  simile  to  use  is  totally  diflferent.     I  simply  ceased 
to  stamp  out  tlie  different  revolutionary  fuses  that  were  al- 
ready burning.     When  Colombia  committed  flagrant  wrong 
against  us,  1  considered  it  no  part  of  my  duty  to  aid  and  abet 
her  in    her   wrongdoing   at   our  expense,   and    also    at    the 
expense  of   I*anama,  of  the   French   company,   and  of  the 
world  generall}-.     There  had  been  fifty  years  of  continuous 
bloodshed  and  civil  strife  in  Panama;   because  of  my  action 
Panama  has  now  known  ten  years  of  such  peace  and  pros- 
perity as  she  never  before  saw  during  the  four  centuries  of 
her  existence  —  for  in  Panama,  as  in  Cuba  and  Santo  Do- 
mingo, it  yvas  the  action  of  the  American  people,  against 
the  outcries  of  the  professed  apostles  of  peace,  which  alone 
brought   peace.     We  gave   to   the  people  of   Panama   self- 
government,   and  freed   them  from   subjection   tt)  alien  op- 
pressors.    We  did  our  best  to  get  Colombia  to  let   us  treat 
her  with  a  more   than   generous    justice;    we  exercised   pa- 
tience to  beyond  the  verge  t)f  proper  forbearance.     When  we 
did  act  and  recognize  Panama,  Colombia  at  once  acknowl- 
edged her  own  guilt  by  promptly  offering  to  do  what  we  had 
demanded,  and  what  she  had  protested  it  was  not  in  her 
power  to  do.      Hut  the  offer  came  too  late.     What  we  would 
gladK-    have    done    before,    it    had    by  that    time    become 
impossible    for    us    honorably    to    do;    for    it    would    have 
necessitated  our  abandoning    the    people  of    Panama,  our 
friends,  and  turning  them  over  to  their  and  our  foes,  who 
would  have  wreaked  vengeance  on  them  precisely  because 
they    had    sliown    friendship    to   us.     Colombia    was    solely 
responsible  for  her  (iwn  humiliation  ;    and  she  had  not  then, 
and  has  not  now,  one  shadow  of  claim  upon  us,  moral   or 
legal;    al!  ihr  utmii;  tliat  wa-  dime  was  d<--ne  b\   her.      If,  a< 
representing  the  American  peM|ik',  I   had  not  acted  pri'cisely 


^i| 


MONROE   DOCTRINK   AND   PANAMA   CANAL    569 

as  I  did,  I  would  have  been  an  unfaithful  or  incompetent 
representative;  and  inactioi;  at  that  crisis  would  have  meant 
not  only  indefinite  delay  in  building  the  canal,  but  also 
practical  admission  on  our  part  that  we  were  not  tit  to  play 
the  part  on  the  Isthmus  which  we  had  arrogated  to  ourselves. 
I  acted  on  my  own  responsibility  in  the  I'anama  matter. 
John  Hay  spoke  of  this  action  as  follows  :  "The  action  of  the 
President  in  the  l*anama  matter  is  not  only  in  the  strictest 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  justice  and  equity,  and  in 
line  with  all  the  best  precedents  of  our  public  policy,  but  it 
was  the  only  course  he  could  have  taken  in  compliance  with 
our  treaty  rights  and  obligations." 

I  deeply  regretted,  and  now  deepl\'  regret,  the  fact  that 
the  Colombian  Cjovernment  rendered  it  imperative  for  me 
to  take  the  action  I  took;  but  I  had  no  alternative,  con- 
sistent with  the  full  performance  of  my  duty  to  my  own 
people,  and  to  the  nations  of  mankind.  (For,  be  il  re- 
membered, that  certain  other  nations,  Chi'  "^or  example,  will 
probably  benefit  even  more  by  our  acti>  .1  than  will  the 
United  States  itself.)  1  am  well  aware  that  the  Colombian 
people  have  many  fine  traits;  that  there  is  among  them  a 
circle  of  high-bred  men  and  women  which  would  reflect 
honor  on  the  social  life  of  an\  country;  and  that  there  has 
been  an  intellectual  and  literary  development  within  this 
small  circle  which  partiall\-  atones  for  the  stagnation  and 
illiteracy  of  the  mass  of  the  people;  and  I  also  know  that 
even  the  illiterate  mass  possesses  main-  sterling  qualities. 
But  unff)rtunatel\-  in  international  matters  every  nation 
must  be  judged  by  the  action  of  its  (Government.  The  good 
people  in  Colombia  apparently  made  no  eflfort,  certainly  no 
successful  effort,  to  cause  the  (lovernment  to  act  with  reason- 
able good  faith  towards  the  I'nited  States;  and  Colombia  had 
to  take  the  consequences.  If  Brazil,  or  the  .Argentine,  or 
Chile,  had  been  in  possession  of  the  Jsthmus.  doubtless  the 
canal  would  ha\t.'  In-en  built  under  the  governnu'iital  control 
of  the  nation  thus  enntniiling  tiie  Isthmus,  with  the  hearty 
acquiescence  of  (he  I  tiited  Static  and  d  all  dtlui  powi'is. 
But  in  the  actual  fact  th<-  i,i!)a!  w..!!!d  Ji^l  lia\e  been  built 
at  all  sa\c  for  the  action  I  tonk.      If  men  choose  to  sa\   that 


t 


570     rnLDDORK  R(X)si:\  i-:i;r  -  AN  ai  tobioc.raphy 

it  would  have  been  better  not  to  build  it,  than  to  build  it  as 
the  result  of  such  action,  their  position,  although  foolish,  is 
compatible  with  belief  in  their  wrongheadcd  sincerity.  But 
it  is  hypocrisy,  alike  odious  and  contemptible,  for  any  man 
to  say  both  that  we  ought  to  have  built  the  canal  and  that 
we  ought  not  to  have  acted  in  the  way  we  did  act. 

After  a  sufficient  period  of  wrangling,  the  Senate  ratified 
the  treaty  with  Panama,  and  work  on  tlie  canal  was  begun. 
The  first  thing  that  was  necesr.ary  was  to  decide  the  type  of 
canal.  I  summoned  a  board  of  engineering  experts,  foreign 
and  native.  They  divided  on  their  report.  The  majority 
of  the  members,  iiicluding  all  the  foreign  members,  approved 
a  sea-level  canal.  The  minority,  including  most  of  the 
American  members,  approved  a  lock  canal.  St.  -'ing  these 
conclusions,  I  came  to  the  belief  that  the  minorit\  was  right. 
The  two  great  traffic  canals  of  the  world  were  the  Suez  and 
the  Soo.  The  Suez  Canal  is  a  sea-level  canal,  and  it  was  the 
one  best  known  to  Kuropean  engineers.  The  Soo  Canal, 
through  which  an  even  greater  volume  of  traffic  passes  every 
year,  is  a  lock  canal,  and  the  American  engineers  were 
thoroughly  familiar  with  it  ;  whereas,  in  my  judgment,  the 
European' engineers  had  failed  to  pay  proper  heed  to  the 
lessons  taught  by  its  operation  and  management.  More- 
over, the  engineers  who  were  to  do  the  work  at  Panama  all 
favored  a  lock  canal.  1  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a.  sea- 
level  canal  would  be  slightly  less  exposed  *o  damage  in  the 
event  of  war;  that  the  running  expenses,  apart  from  the 
heavy  cost  of  interest  on  the  amount  necessary  to  build  it, 
would  be  less;  and  that  for  small  ships  the  time  of  transit 
would  be  less.  But  I  also  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
lock  canal  at  the  proposed  level  would  cost  only  about  half 
as  much  to  build  and  would  be  built  in  half  the  time,  with 
much  less  risk;  that  for  huge  ships  the  transit  would  '..e 
qui^:ker,  ami  that,  taking  into  account  the  interest  saved, 
the  .>  St  of  maintenance  would  be  less.  Accordingly  I  recom- 
mended to  Congress,  on  February  19,  1906,  that  a  lock  canal 
should  be  built,  and  my  recommendation  was  adopted. 
Congress  insisted  upon  having  it  built  by  a  commissi(  n  oi 
several  men.      I  tried  faithfully  to  get  good  workout  of  the 


MONROK    noCIRIXK   AND    I'AXAMA   CANAL     571 


cummissiuM,  and   found   ii  quiti'   impossible;     lor  a   many- 
headed  commission  is  an  extremely  poor  executive  instru- 
ment.    At  last  I  put  Colonel  Goethals  in  as  head  of  the  com- 
mission.    Then,  when   Congress  still   refused   to  make  the 
commission    single-headed,    I    solved    the   difficulty    by    an 
executive  order  of  January  6,  1908,  which  practically  accom- 
plished the  object  by  enlarging  the  powers  of  the  chairman, 
making  all  the  other  members  of  the  commission  dependent 
upon  him,   and  thereby  placing  tlie  work   under  one-man 
control.     Dr.  Gorgas  had  already  performed  an  inestimable 
service  bv  caring  for  the  sanitary  conditions  so  thoroughly  as 
to  make' the  Isthmus  as  safe  as  a  health  resort.     Colonel 
(joethals  proved  to  be  the  man  of  all  others  to  do  the  job. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  cn-erstate  what  he  has  done.     It 
is  the  greatest  task  of  any  kind  that  any  man  in  the  world 
has  accomplished  during' the  years  that  Colonel  Goethals 
has  been  at  work.     It   is  the  greatest  task  of  its  own  kind 
that  has  ever  been  performed  in  the  wotiJ  at  all.     Colonel 
Goethals  has  succeeded  in  instilling  into  the  men  under  liim 
a  spirit  which  elsewhere  has  been  found  only  in  a  few  vic- 
torious armies.     It  is  proper  and  appropriate  that,  like  the 
soldiers  of  such  armies,  they  should  receive  medals  which 
are  allotted  each  man  who  has  served  for  a  sufficient  length 
of  time.     A  finer  body  of  men  has  never  been  gathered  by 
any  nation  than  the  m'en  who  have  done  the  work  of  building 
the  Panama  Canal;    tlu-  conditions  under  which  they  have 
lived  and  have  done  their  work  have  been  better  than  in  any 
similar  work  ever  undertaken  in  the  tropics;    they  have  all 
felt  an  eager  pride  in  their  work;    and  they  have  made  not 
only  America  but  the  whole  world  their  debtors  by  what 
they  have  accomplished. 


Sji 


APPENDIX 


COLOMBIA:  THE  PROPOSKI)  MESSAGK  TO  CONGRESS 


The  rough  draft  of  the  message  I  had  proposed  to  send  Congress 
ran  as  follows  : 

"The  Colombian  Cjovcrnment,  through  its  representative  here, 
and  directly  in  communication  with  our  representativeatColombia, 
has  refused  to  come  to  any  agreement  with  us,  and  has  delayed 
action  so  as  to  make  it  evident  that  it  intends  to  make  extortionate 
and  improper  terms  with  us.  l"he  Isthmian  Canal  bill  was,  of 
course,  passed  upon  the  assumption  that  whatever  route  was  used, 
the  benefit  to  the  particular  section  of  the  Isthmus  through  which 
it  passed  would  be  so  great  that  the  country  controlling  this  part 
would  be  eager  to  facilitate  the  building  of  the  canal.  It  is  out  of 
the  question  to  submit  to  extortion  on  the  part  of  a  beneficiary  of 
the  scheme.  All  the  labor,  all  the  expense,  all  the  risk  are  to  be 
assumed  by  us  and  all  the  skill  shown  by  us.  Those  controlling 
the  ground  through  which  the  canal  is  to  be  put  are  wholly  inca- 
pable of  building  it. 

"Vet  the  interest  of  international  commerce  generally  and  the 
interest  of  this  country  generally  demands  that  the  canal  should 
be  begun  with  no  needless  delay.  The  refusal  of  Colombia  properly 
to  respond  to  our  sincere  and  earnest  efforts  to  come  to  an  agree- 
ment, or  to  pay  heed  to  the  nian\'  concessions  we  have  made,  ren- 
ders it  in  my  judgment  necessary  that  the  United  States  should 
take  immediate  action  on  one  of  two  lines :  either  we  should  drop 
the  Panama  canal  project  and  immediately  begin  work  on  the  Nica- 
raguan  canal,  or  else  we  should  purchase  all  the  rights  of  the  French 
company,  and,  without  any  further  parley  with  Colombia,  entc- 
upun  the  completion  of  the  canal  which  the  French  company  has 
begun.  I  feel  that  the  latter  course  is  the  one  demanded  by  the 
interests  of  this  Nation,  and  I  therefore  bring  the  matter  to  your 
attention  for  such  action  in  the  premises  as  you  may  deem  wise. 
If  in  your  judgment  it  is  better  not  to  take  such  action,  then  I  shall 
proceed  at  once  with  the  Nicaraguan  canal. 

"The  reason  that  I  advocate  the  action  above  outlined  in  re- 

S7i 


APPENDIX 


573 


gard  to  the  Panama  canal  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  strong  testi- 
mony of  the  experts  that  this  route  is  the  most  feasible ;  and  in  the 
next  place,  the  impropriety  from  an  international  standpoint  of 
permitting  such  conduct  as  that  to  which  Colombia  seems  to  incline. 
The  testimony  of  the  experts  is  very  strong,  not  only  that  the  Pan- 
ama route  is  feasible,  but  that  in  the  Nicaragua  route  we  may  en- 
counter some  unpleasant  surprises,  and  that  it  is  far  more  difficult 
to  forecast  the  result  with  any  certainty  as  regards  this  latter 
route.  As  for  Colombia's  attitude,  it  is  incomprehensible  upon  any 
theory  of  desire  to  see  the  canal  built  upon  the  basis  of  mutual 
advantage  alike  to  those  building  it  and  to  Colombia  herself.  All 
we  desire  to  do  is  to  take  up  the  work  begun  by  the  French  (jov  rn- 
mcnt  and  to  finish  it.  Obviously  it  is  Colombia's  duty  to  help 
towards  such  completion.  We  arc  most  anxious  lo  come  to  an 
agreement  with  her  in  which  most  scrupulous  care  should  be  taken 
to  guard  her  interests  and  ours.  But  we  cannot  consent  to  permit 
her  to  block  the  performance  of  the  work  which  it  is  so  greatly  to 
our  interest  immediately  to  begin  and  carr\   through." 

Shortly  after  this  rough  draft  was  dictated  the  Panama  revolu- 
tion cam  %  and  i  never  thought  of  the  rough  draft  again  until  1  was 
accused  of  having  instigated  the  revolution.  'I'his  accusation  is 
preposterous  in  the  eyes  of  any  one  who  knows  the  actual  condi- 
tions at  Panama.  Only  the  menace  of  action  by  us  in  the  interest 
of  Colombia  kept  down  revolution ;  as  soon  as  Colombia's  own 
conduct  removed  such  menace,  all  check  on  the  various  revolu- 
tionary movements  (there  were  at  least  three  from  entirely  separate 
sources)  ceased ;  and  then  an  explosion  was  inevitable,  for  the 
French  company  knew  that  all  their  property  would  be  confiscated 
if  Colombia  put  through  her  plans,  and  the  entire  people  of  Panama 
felt  that  if  in  disgust  with  Colombia's  extortions  the  United 
States  turned  to  Nicaragua,  they,  the  people  of  Panama,  would  be 
ruined.  Knowing  the  character  of  those  then  in  charge  of  the 
Colombian  (Government,  I  was  not  surprised  at  their  bad  faith; 
but  1  was  surprised  at  their  folly.  They  apparently  had  no  idea 
either  of  the  power  of  France  or  the  power  of  the  United  States, 
and  expected  to  be  permitted  to  commit  wrong  with  impunity, 
just  as  Castro  in  \'enezuela  had  done,  'i'he  difference  was  that, 
unless  we  acted  in  self-defense,  Colombia  had  it  in  her  power  to  do 
us  serious  harm,  and  X'ene/.uela  did  not  have  such  power.  Colom- 
bia's wrongdoing,  thereff)re,  recoiled  on  her  c.uii  head.  'I  here 
was  no  new  lesson  lauL'lil ;  it  outrln  alreatiy  to  have  been  known  .  / 
every  one  that  wickedness,  weakness,  and  folly  combined  rarely 
fail  to  meet  punishment,  and  that  the  intent  u>  do  wrong,  when 


574     TIIKODORK   ROOSIA  Kl.T  -  AN   MTOBIOCIUPllY 

joined  to  inabilitv  to  carry  the  evil  inirpose  to  a  successful  conclu- 
sion, ine%  itably  reacts  on  llie  wronjrdoer.  ,  , 
For  ,he  full  history  of  the  acqu.s.t.on  ami  bu.ld.nK'.  <  f  ^hei:a.^^» 
see  -The  Panama  (lateway,"  by  Joseph  Buckl.n  B.shop  (Scr.b- 
ner's  Sons).  Mr.  Bishop  has  been  for  ei^-ht  years  secretary  of  the 
conunission  and  is  <.ne  of  the  nx.st  efficient  of  the  many  etfic.enl 
„K-n  to  whose  work  on  the  Isthmus  America  owes  so  much. 


...^ 


N'oHM.  Pi'i/i    Dri'i.iiMx  IN  ('\sr. 


CHAI'TKR   X\ 


THK    PEACI     OF    RlGHTI.()tS\F:SS 


THMRK  can  be  no  nobler  cause  for  which  to  work 
than  the  peace  of  righteousness;  and  iiigh  iionor 
is  due  tiiose  serene  and  loft\-  souls  who  witli  wisdom 
and  courage,  with  high  idealism  tempered  by  sane 
facing  of  the  actual  facts  of  life,  have  striven  to  bring  nearer 
the  diiy  when  armed  strife  between  nation  and  nation, 
between  class  and  class,  between  man  and  man  shall  end 
throughout  the  world.  Because  all  this  is  true,  it  is  alst» 
true  that  there  are  no  men  more  ignoble  or  more  foolish, 
no  men  whose  actions  are  frauglit  with  greater  possibility 
of  mischief  to  their  country  and  to  mankind,  than  those  who 
exalt  unrighteous  peace  as  better  than  righteous  war.  The 
men  who  liave  stood  highest  in  our  history,  as  in  the  history 
of  all  countries,  are  those  who  scorned  injustice,  who  were 
incapable  of  oppressing  the  weak,  or  of  permitting  their 
country,  with  their  consent,  to  oppress  the  weak,  but  who  did 
not  hesitate  to  draw  the  s  rord  when  to  leave  it  undrawn 
meant  inability  to  arrest  triumphant  wrong. 

All  this  is  so  obvious  that  it  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to 
repeat  it.  Yet  every  man  in  active  affairs,  who  also  reads 
about  the  past,  grows  by  bitter  experience  to  realize  that 
there  are  plenty  of  men,  not  only  among  those  who  mean 
ill,  but  amiing  lho.se  who  mean  well,  who  arc  ready  enough 
to  praise  what  was  done  in  the  past,  and  yet  are  incapable 
of  profiting  by  it  when  faced  by  the  needs  of  the  present. 


II 


57^,     TllKonORF.   ROOSKX  Ki;r      AN    Ar'IOBKK.RAPMV 

he    asc  amon^  tin-  nun  vv!,..  l.av.  In-onu-  ..bscssc-a  w.lh  the 
Idea   of  obtaining   nnivcrs.l    pc-ac.   by   s,.nu-   clu-ap   patent 

''''Th'eii"  has  been  a  real  and  substantial  growth  in  the  feel- 
\J  fcr  international  responsibility  and  justice  among    he 
'  ta    civilized  nations  during   the  past   threescore  or    our- 
1-ore  years.     There  has  been  a  real  growth  of  recognition 
of  tle'fact  that  moral  turpitude  is  i"Vo^-»  '  ^  "' rrT  aS 
of  one  nation  by  another,  and  that  in  most  cases  xvar       an 
evil   method  of   settling   international   difficulties.     But   a 
vet   there  has  been  only   a   rudimentarv   beginning  of  the 
deve  opment  of  international  tribunals  of  justice,  and  there 
has  been  no  development  at  all  of  any  international  police 
power      N<nv,    as    I    have    already    said,    the   who  e    fabric 
o    municipal  law,  ..f  law  within  each  nation,  rests  ultimately 
uprthe    udge  ai\d  the  policeman  ;  and  tl-  complete  absence 
cf^he  policeman,  and  the  almost  complete  absence  o    the 
judge    in  international  aflfairs,  prevents  there  being  as  yet 
inv^a-a   homology  between  municipal  and  international  law 
Moreover   the  questions  which  sometimes  involve  nations 
in  war  are  far  more  difficult  and  complex  than  any  qu^^ticms 
that  affect  merely  individuals.     Almost  every  great  nation 
has  inherited  certain  questions,  either  with  other  nations  or 
.'th  sections  of  its  own  people,  which  it  is  quite  •mposs.bl 
in  the  present   state  of  civilization,   to  decide  as   matters 
between  private  individuals  can  be  decided,     during  the 
last  century  at  least  half  of  the  wars  that  have  been  fought 
have  been  civil  and  not  foreign  wars.     There  are  big  and 
powerful    nations    which    habitually    commit,    either    upon 
oXr  nations  or  upon  sections  of  their  own  people,  wrongs 
so  outrageous  as  to  justifv  even  the  most  peaceful  persons 
n  go  ng  to  war.     There  are  also  weak  nations  so  utterly 
"competent  either  to  protect  the  rights  of  foreigners  aga.ns 
their  own  citizens,  or  to  protect  their  own  citizens  against 
foreigners,  that  it  becomes  a  matter  of  sheer  duty  for  some 
outside   power  to  interfere  in  connection   ^.th   them.     A^ 
yet  in  neither  case  is  there  any  ^^^^^^i^^'^^'^i^i^Z-^ 
nternational  action ;  and  if  joint  action  by  several  powers  is 


Tur.  PF.Acr.  or  RKWiiKorsxKSs 


577 


secured,  tin-  result  is  usually  lousiderably  worse  than  if 
only  one  Povvei  inlertert'd.  I'lie  worst  infamies  of  inotiern 
times  —  such  affairs  as  ilic  niassaen-s  of  tin-  Armenians 
by  the  Turks,  for  instance  have  been  perpetrated  in  a 
lime  of  nominally  profound  international  peace,  when  there 
has  been  a  concert  of  bi^;  Powers  to  prevent  the  breaking  of 
this  peace,  although  only  by  breaking  it  could  the  outrages 
be  stopped.  Be  it  remembered  that  the  peoples  who  suf- 
fered Dy  these  hideous  massacres,  who  saw  their  women 
violated  and  their  children  tortured,  were  actually  enjoying 
all  the  benefits  of  "disarmament."  Otherwise  they  wouk' 
not  have  been  massacred;  for  if  the  Jews  in  Russia  and  the 
Armenians  in  Turkey  had  been  armed,  and  had  been  effi- 
cient in  the  use  of  their  arms,  no  mob  would  have  meddled 
with  them. 

Vet  amiable  but  fatuous  persons,  with  all  these  facts 
before  their  eyes,  pass  resolutions  demanding  universal 
arbitration  for  everything,  and  the  disarmament  of  the  free 
civilized  powers  and  their  abandonment  of  their  armed 
forces;  or  else  they  write  well-meaning,  solemn  little  books, 
or  pamphlets  or  editorials,  and  articles  in  magazines  or 
newspapers,  to  show  that  it  is  "an  illusion"  to  believe  that 
war  ever  pays,  because  it  is  expensive.  This  is  precisely 
like  arguing  that  we  should  disband  the  police  and  devote 
our  sole  attention  to  persuading  criminals  that  it  is  "an 
illusion"  to  suppose  tliat  burglary,  highway  robbery  and 
white  slavery  are  profitable.  It  is  almost  useless  to  attempt 
to  argue  with  these  well-intentioned  persons,  because  they 
are  suffering  under  an  obsession  and  are  not  open  to  reason. 
They  go  wrong  at  the  outset,  for  they  lay  all  the  emphasis 
oi  peace  and  none  at  all  on  righteousness.  They  are  not 
all  of  them  physically  timid  men  ;  but  they  are  usually  men 
of  soft  life ;  and  they  rarely  possess  a  high  sense  of  honor  or 
a  keen  patriotism.  They  rarely  try  to  prevent  their  fellow 
countrymen  from  insulting  or  wronging  the  people  of  other 
nations ;  but  they  always  ardently  advocate  that  we,  in  our 
turn,  shall  tamely  submit  to  wrong  and  insult  from  other 
nations.  As  Americans  their  folly  is  peculiarly  scandalous, 
because  if  the  principles  they  now  uphold  are  right,  it  means 


,;7H     TIIKODOKK    K(M)Si:\  Kl/l'      AN    Al  lOHUKlRAPllY 

iliat  it  wniita  iKivi-  Inrii  Wmr  lliat  Aiiu-iicaiis  sIk.uKI  lu-vrr 
liivi'  adiirvid  tl\iir  iiulcpriuUiu.',  ami  l>.nii  llial,  in  lS6l, 
iluv  sli..iiKl  liavr  luaa  fiilK  s.il.iniiuil  I.- si'.ing  thnromntry 

spli't  iiiti)  half  a  d<./iii  jannliiin  cdifi'di  racii-s  and  slavery 
made  pcrjHlual.  If  unwilling  t..  kan.  fr..m  Uu-ir  own 
him..rv,  let  thosi-  who  think  that  it  is  an  "illusion  K.  believe 
that  a  war  ever  benefits  a  r  on  look  at  the  difference 
between  China  and  lapan.  China  has  neither  a  fleet  nor 
an  efficient  arnn  .  It  is  a  luiK'e  civilized  empire,  one  (jf  the 
most  populous  on  the  globe;  and  it  has  been  the  helpless 
picv  of  outsiders  because  it  does  not  possess  the  power  to 
fijih't.  japan  stands  on  a  footing  of  i-.niality  with  Kuropean 
and  \merican  nations  because  it  does  possess  this  power. 
China  now  sees  japan,  Russia,  Cermany.  Kngland  and 
France  in  possession  of  fragments  of  her  empire,  and  has 
twice  within  the  lifetime  of  the  ^  resent  generation  seen  her 
capital  in  the  hands  of  allied  invaders,  because  she  in  very 
fact  realizes  the  ideals  of  the  persons  who  wish  the  United 
States  to  disarm,  and  then  trust  that  our  helplessness  will 
secure  us  a  contemptuous  immunity  from  attack  by  outside 


nations. 

The  chief  trouble  comes  fro.',  the  eiU.ie  ii 
worthv    people    to    understand    that    they    are    demanding 


inabilitv  of  these 


peoj 


things  that  are  mutuallv  incompatible  when  they  demand 
peace  at  any  price,  and  also  justice  and  righte(>usness.  1 
remember  one  representative  of  their  number,  who  used  to 
write  little  sonnets  on  behalf  of  the  Mahdi  and  the  Sudan- 
ese, these  sonnets  setting  forth  the  need  that  the  Sudan 
should  be  both  independent  and  peaceful.  As  a  matter  ot 
fact,  the  Sudan  valued  independence  only  because  it  desired 
to  war  against  all  Christians  and  to  carry  on  an  unhiTiited 
ave  trade.      It   was  "indepu-ndent "   under  the  Mahdi  I 


a  dozen  years,  and  during  th(jse  dozen  years  the  bigotry, 
tyranny,  and  cruel  religious  intolerance  were  such  as  flour- 
ished in  the  seventh  century,  and  in  spite  of  systematic 
slave  raids  the  populaticMi  decreased  by  nearly  two-thirds, 
und  practically  all  the  children  died.  jVace  came,  well- 
being  came,  freedom  from  rape  and  murder  and  torture  and 
(ligh-.vay  robbery,  and  every  brutal  gratification  of  lust  and 


IHK   VlALi:  OK   RICIirKOL'SNKSS 


579 


greed  cami-,  only  wlu-n  tin-  Sudan  lost  its  indi-pendc-ncc  and 
passed  under  Knglisli  rule,  ^'et  this  well-mean in>;  little 
sonneteer  sincerely  felt  that  his  verses  vvrre  issued  in  the 
cause  of  humanity.  I.ookinyr  baik  from  the  vantage  point 
of  a  score  of  years,  prohaliiy  every  one  will  agree  that  he 
was  an  absurd  person,  liuc  he  was  not  oiu-  whit  more 
absurd  than  most  of  the  more  prominent  persons  who  advo- 
cate disarmament  by  the  I  nititl  Slates,  tlu'  cessation  of 
up-building  the  navy,  and  tie  promisr  to  agrtc  to  arbitrate 
all  matters,  including  those  aflPtctiiig  our  national  interests 
and  honor,  with  all   foreign   nations. 

These  persons  would  do  no  harm  if  they  affected  only 
themselves.  Many  of  tlutii  are,  in  tlu"  onlinar)  relations 
of  life,  good  citizens.  They  are  exactly  like  the  other  good 
citizens  who  believe  that  enforced  universal  \  egetarianism 
or  anti-vaccination  is  the  panacia  for  all  ills.  But  in  their 
particular  case  they  are  able  to  tlo  harm  because  they 
affect  our  relations  with  foreign  powers,  so  that  other  men 
pay  the  debt  which  they  themselves  have  really  incurred. 
It  is  the  foolish,  [H-ace-at-any-price  persons  who  try  to 
persuade  our  people  to  make  unwise  and  improper  treaties, 
or  to  stop  building  up  the  navy.  But  if  trouble  comes  and 
the  treaties  are  repu-ii  'ted,  or  there  is  a  demand  for  armed 
intervention,  it  is  not  these  people  who  will  pay  anything; 
they  will  stay  at  home  in  safety,  and  leave  bra\e  men  to 
pay  in  blood,  and  honest  men  to  pav  in  shame,  for  their 
folly. 

The  trouble  is  that  our  policy  is  apt  to  go  in  zigzags, 
because  different  sections  of  our  people  oxercise  at  different 
times  unequal  pressure  on  our  government.  One  class  of 
our  citizens  clamor  for  treaties  impossible  of  fultilment, 
and  improper  to  fulfil;  another  class  have  no  objection  to 
the  passage  of  these  treaties  so  long  as  there  is  no  concrete 
case  to  which  they  apply,  but  instantly  oppose  a  veto  on 
their  application  when  any  concrete  case  does  actually  arise. 
One  of  our  cardinal  doetrini's  is  freedom  of  speech,  which 
means  freedom  of  speech  about  fon-itrwers  is  well  as  about 
ourselves;  and,  inasmuch  as  we  exercise  t'  ligiit  with  com- 
plete absence  of  restraint,  we  cannot  exp.ct  other  nations 


5li 


580     ■I11KC)1X)RK   ROOSFAELT-  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to  hold  us  harmless  unless  in  the  last  1^^%^^  ^^^^^'^ 
make  our  own  words  pood  by  our  deeds.  One  ^'-^^s  "^«"': 
c  tizens  indulges  in  gushing  promises  to  do  everythmg  or 
citucns  inaui}.ch  ^  „ffe„sivelv  and  mpropcrly  reviles 
foreigners    am.th   1   c  as  ott,„^       1^^  j,j  thoroughly 

;  ::^;"  ,:::  U  the^tlx.;,  ^^lf-;;^pecting  Wdgmen,  of  the 
Wen  People  as  a  whole  The  only  safe  -kis^o  prom- 
ise little,  ind  faithfully  to  keep  every  promise,  to      speak 

'''t^^^'::Z  io';^.";:iCn,  as  of  eoupe  for  every  oth^ 
n-uion     s  t     inake  up  its  mind  definitely  what  it  wishes, 
;  d     ot  to  tv  to  purJue  paths  of  conduct  incompatible  one 
t»    t,;.  other       If  this  nation  is  content  to  be  the  China  of 
Ih  \  w  tM  then  and  then  only  can  it  afford  to  do  away 
V    h  th^-  navv  and  the  army,     if  it  is  content  to  abando 
IH  vaii    -I   d  'the    Panama   Canal,    f.   cease   t<.   talk   of   the 
U  nr  e        ctrine,  and  to  admit  the  right  of  any  European 
or  \- tic  power  to  dictate  what  immigrants  shal    be  sent 
Z  ;^;;(  "chived  in  America,  and  wlu-ther  or  not^^cy  «ha 
be    -xUowed    to   become    citizens   and    hold   land        why,   ( 
coum     i      \merica  is  content    to    have  nothing  to  say  on 
anv     f    Ik-;-  matters  and  t<.  keep  silent  in  the  presence  of 
artne     .    tsiders,  then  it  can  abandon  its  navy  and  agree  to 
a  bi    a      al   quc;tions  of  all  kinds  with  every  foreign  power 
tn  su  h\'  ent  it  can  afford  to  pass  its  spare  time  in  one 
on"n;..s    round   of   universal    peace   -l«,'t-^;-.'-'  f "f   " 
nug  self-satisfaction   in   having  earned  the  J;-";  :'■";. 
the  virile  peoples  of  mankind.     lh..se  who  adv<  catc  such 
a  policy  do  n.lt  occupy  a  lofty  position.     But  at  least  their 
nosition  is  understandable.  ,  .         , 

^  is  entirelv  inexcusable,  however,  to  try  t(.  combine  the 
unreadv  hand  with  the  unbridled  tongue.  It  >« /""y  ;;> 
nermit  fre-dom  of  speech  about  foreigners  as  well  as  our- 
TcZ  and  the  peace-at-any-price  persons  are  much  too 
feeble  a  folk  to  tr     to  interfere  with  freedom   of    speech- 


'IIIK    IM'.ACK   OK    RlClirKOrSNKSS 


;Hl 


oiirsi'lv;  J'fi.'.  thai  \vc  liaxc  a  ri^'ht  to  retain  Hawaii  aiul 
prcv  'I  titrvit,'"  ii'iiii)iis  troiii  taking  Cuba,  and  a  right  lu 
dete  iiini  vvhal  'i.iinigrants,  Asiatic-  <ir  l^iiropcan,  shall 
comi  t(  (Hii  sh(.!  >,  and  thf  terms  on  which  liiey  shall  be 
natui:.!i,-"d  and  snail  hold  land  and  fxercisc  other  privileges. 
We  are  a  rich  people,  and  an  unniilitary  people.  In  inter- 
national affairs  we  are  a  short-sighted  people.  But  I  know 
my  countrymen.  Down  at  bottom  their  temper  is  such 
that  the)  will  not  pi-rmanently  tolerati'  injustice  done  to 
them.  In  the  long  run  lhe\  will  no  more  permit  affronts 
to  their  National  honor  than  injuries  to  their  national 
interest.  Such  being  the  case,  they  will  do  well  to  remember 
that  the  surest  of  all  ways  to  invite  disaster  is  to  be  opulent, 
aggressive   and    unarmed. 

Throughout  the  seven  and  a  half  years  that  I  was  Presi- 
dent,   I    pursued    without    faltering   one   consistent    foreign 
policy,  a   policy  of  genuine  international   good   will   and  of 
consideration  for  the  rights  of  others,  and  at  the  same  time 
of  steady   preparedness.     The   weakest    nations    knew   that 
they,  no  less  than  the  strongest,  were  safe  from  insult  and 
injury  at  our  hands  ;  and  the  strong  and  the  weak  alike  also 
knew' that  we  possessed  both  the  will  and  the  ability  to  guard 
ourselves  from  wrong  or  insult   at   the   hands  of  any  one. 
It  was  under  my  administration  that    the  Hague  Court 
was   saved   from   becoming   an   empty   tarce.      It    had   been 
established  by  joint  international  agreement,  but  no  Power 
had  been  willing  to  resort  to  it.     Those  establishing  it  had 
grown  to  realize  that  it  was  in  danger  <if  becoming  a  mere 
paper  court,  so  that  it  would  never  really  come  into  being  at 
all.     M.    dT^^stournelles    de    Constant    had    been    especially 
alive  to  this  danger.      By   correspondence  and   in   personal 
interviews  he  impressed  upon  me  the  need  not  onh'  of  making 
advances    by    actually    applying    arbitration        not    merely 
promising  by  treaty  to  apply  it        to  questions  that  were 
up  for  settlement,  but  of  using  the  Hague  tribunal  for  this 
purpose.     I  cordially  sympathized  witli    these    views.     On 
the  recommendation  of  John  Hay,   I   succeeded  in  getting 
an  agreement  with  Mexico  to  lay  a  matter  in  dispute   be- 
tween  the    two   republics   before    the   Hague  Court.     This 


i } 

i  I 


5S2       rilKOnORF.    ROOSFA  EI.T       AN   Al  TORIOdRAPUV 

was  tlu' iirsi  casi- i\ii  hiipiiglil  lu'lon-  llic  I  lagiu' _f  "ourl.      k 
was  followed  by   mitiuToiis  otluTs;   aiul  it  dcfinivcly  estab- 
lished tiiat  court  as  the  ^Meat  iuteiiiatioual  peace  tribunal. 
Bv  mutuai  agreement  with  Cireat  Britain,  through  the  deci- 
sion of  a  )t)int  commission,  of  which  the  American  members 
were  Senators  Lodge  and  Turner,  and  Secretary   Root,  we 
were  able  peacefully  to  settle  the  Alaska  Boundary  question, 
the    only    question    remaining   between    ourselves    and    the 
British  Kmpire  whicii  it  was  not  possible  lo  settle  by  friendly 
arbitration;   this   therefore  represented    the  removal  of   the 
last  obstacle  to  absolute  agreement  between  the  two  peo- 
ples.    We  were  of  substantial  service  in  bringing  to  a  satis- 
factorv  conclusion  the  negotiations  at  Algeciras  concerning 
Morocco.     We    concluded    with    (ireat    Britain,    and    with 
most    of   the   other   great    nations,  arbitration    treaties  spe- 
cifically agreeing  to  arbitrate  all  matters,  and  especiallythc 
interpi-etation   of   treaties,    save   only   as    regards   questions 
affecting    territorial    integrity,    national    honor    and    vital 
national   inter,    t.     We   made   with  (Ireat    Britain   a   treaty 
guaranteeing  the   free  use  of  the   I*anama   Canal  on  equal 
terms  to  the  ships  of  all  nations,  while  reserving  to  ourselves 
the  right  to  police  and  fortify  the  canal,  and  therefore  to 
control  it  ill  time  of  war.     Under  this  treaty  we  are  in  honor 
bound  to  arbitrate  tiie  question  of  canal  tolls  for  coastwise 
traffic    between    the    Western    and    Eastern    coasts^  of    the 
I'nited    States.      1    believe    that    the   American    position    as 
regards  this  matter  is  right ;  but  I  also  believe  th   :  under  the 
arbitration   treaty     ve  are   in   hont)r  bt)und   to  submit  the 
matter  to  arbitration  in  view  of  (Ireat  Britain's  contention 
—  although  I  hold  it  to  be  an  unwise  contention  —  that  our 
position   is  unsound.     1   emphatically  disbelieve  in   making 
universal  arbitration  treaties  which  neither  the  makers  nor 
..ny  one  else  would  for  a  moment  dream  of  keeping.     Ino 
less  emphatically  insist  that  it  is  our  duty  to  keep  the  lim- 
ited and  sensible  arbitration  treaties  which  we  have  already 
made.     The  importance  of  a  promise  lies   not   in   making 
it,  but  in  keeping  it;  and  the  poorest  of  all  positions  for  a 
nation   to  occupy   in  such   a   matter  is   readiness  to  make 
impossible  promises  at  the  same  titne  that  there  is  failure 


THE   PEACE  OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 


583 


to   keep   promises   which    have   been    made,   which   can   be 
kept,  and  which  it  is  discreditable  to  break. 

During  the  early  part  of  the  year  H>05,  the  strain  on  tiie 
civilized  world  caused  by  the  Russo-Japanese  War  became 
serious.  The  losses  of  life  and  of  treasure  were  frightful. 
From  all  the  sources  of  information  .u  hand,  I  grew  most 
strongly  tt)  believe  that  a  further  continuation  of  the  strug- 
gle would  be  a  very  bad  thing  for  Japan,  and  an  even  worse 
thing  for  Russia.  Japan  was  already  suffering  terribly 
from  tlie  drain  upon  her  men,  .^nd  especially  upon  her 
resources,  and  had  nothing  further  to  gain  from  contin- 
uance of  the  struggle ;  its  continuance  meant  to  her  more 
loss  than  gain,  even  if  she  were  victorious.  Russia,  in  spite 
of  her  gigantic  strength,  was,  in  my  judgment,  a^t  to  lose 
even  more  than  she  had  already  lost  if  the  struggle  contin- 
ued. I  deemed  it  probable  that  she  would  no  more  be  able 
successfully  to  defend  Eastern  Siberia  and  Northern  Man- 
churia than  she  had  been  able  to  defend  Southern  Man- 
churia and  Korea.  If  the  war  went  on,  thought  it,  on 
the  whole,  likely  that  Russia  would  be  dri\..i  west  of  Lake 
Baikal.  But  it  was  very  far  from  certain.  There  is  no 
certainty  in  such  a  war.  Japan  might  have  met  defeat, 
and  defeat  to  her  would  have  spelt  over-  lielming  disaster; 
and  even  if  she  had  continued  to  win,  what  she  thus  won 
would  have  been  of  no  value  to  her,  and  the  cost  in  blood 
and  money  would  have  left  her  drained  white.  1  believed, 
therefore,  that  the  time  had  come  when  it  was  greatly  to 
the  interest  of  both  combatants  to  have  peace,  and  when 
therefore  it  was  possible  to  get  both  to  agree  to  peace. 

I  first  satisfied  myself  that  each  side  wished  me  to  act, 
but  that,  naturally  and  properly,  each  side  was  exceedingly 
anxious  that  the  other  should  not  believe  that  the  action  was 
talctn  on  its  initiative.  I  then  sent  an  identical  note  to  the 
two  powers  proposing  that  they  should  meet,  through  their 
representatives,  to  see  if  peace  could  not  be  made  directly 
between  them,  and  offered  to  act  as  an  intermediary  in 
bringing  about  such  a  meeting,  but  not  for  any  other  pur- 
pose. Each  assented  lo  mi\  proposal  in  principk-.  There 
was  difficult)   in  getting  them  to  agree  on  a  common  meeting 


Hi 


<  opsriKiil  hy  in  ui  .mhuI  ami  I  a  lii  »<k«I 


THE   PEACE  OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 


585 


place;  but  each  finally  abandoned  its  original  contention 
in  the  matter,  and  the  representatives  of  the  two  nations 
finally  met  at  Portsmouth,  in  New  Hampshire.  I  pre- 
viously received  the  two  delegations  at  Oyster  Bay  on  the 
U.  S.  S.  Mayflower,  which,  together  with  another  naval 
vessel,  I  put  at  their  disposal,  on  behalf  of  the  United  States 
Government,  to  take  them  from  Oyster  Bay  to  Portsmouth. 
As  is  customary  —  but  both  unwise  and  undesirable  — 
in  ;uich  cases,  each  side  advanced  claims  whicli  the  other 
could  not  grant.  The  chief  difficulty  came  because  of 
Japan's  demand  for  a  money  indemnity.  I  felt  that  it 
would  be  better  for  Russia  to  pay  some  indemnity  than  to 
go  on  with  tl-.e  war,  for  there  was  little  chance,  in  my  judg- 
ment, of  the  war  turning  out  faxorably  for  Russia,  and  the 
revolutionary  movement  already  under  way  bade  fair  to 
overthrf)W  the  negotiations  entirely.  I  advised  the  Rus- 
sian (lovernment  to  this  effect,  at  the  same  time  urging 
them  to  abandon  their  pretensions  on  certain  other  points, 
notably  concerning  the  southern  half  of  Saghelien,  which  the 
Japanese  had  taken.  I  als(  ,  however,  and  equally  strongly, 
advised  the  Japanese  that  in  my  judgment  it  would  be 
the  gravest  mistake  on  their  part  to  insist  on  continuing 
the  war  for  the  sake  of  a  money  indemnity;  for  Russia  was 
absolutely  firm  in  refusing  to  give  them  an  indemnity,  and 
the  longer  the  war  continued  the  less  able  she  would  be  to 
pay.  I  pointed  out  that  there  was  no  possible  analogy 
between  their  case  and  that  of  Germany  in  the  war  with 
France,  which  they  were  loud  of  quoting.  The  Germans 
held  Paris  and  half  of  France,  and  gave  up  much  territory 
in  lieu  of  the  indemnity,  whereas  the  Japanese  were  still 
many  th(jusand  miles  from  Moscow,  and  had  no  territory 
whatever  which  they  wished  to  give  up.  I  also  pointed 
out  that  in  my  judgment  whereas  the  Japanese  had  enjoyed 
the  sympathy  of  most  of  the  civilized  powers  at  the  outset 
of  and  during  the  continuance  of  the  war,  they  would  for- 
feit it  if  the\  turned  tin-  war  into  one  merely  for  getting 
money  and,  m<irei>ver,  the)-  would  almost  certainly  fail 
to  get  the  mone\-,  and  would  simply  find  themselves  at  the 
end  of  a  year,  even  if  things  prospered  with  them,  in  posses- 


5S6     THEODORK   ROOSIAELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

sion  of  tcrritorv  ihev  did  not  want,  having  spent  enormous 
additional  sums  of  money,  and  lost  enormous  additional 
numbers  c.f  men.  and  yet  without  a  penny  of  remuneration. 
The  treatv  of  peace  was  finally  signed.  •  j     r  u 

\s  is  inevitable  under  such  circumstances    each  side  telt 
that  it  ought  to  have  got  better  terms ;  and  when  the  danger 
was  well  pa«t  each  side  felt  that  it  had  been  over-reached 
bv  the  other,  and  that  if  the  war  had  gone  on  it  would  have 
cotten  more  than  it  actually  did  get.      The  Japanese  Cjov- 
ernment  had  been  wise  throughout,  except  in  the  matter  of 
announcing   tliat    it   would    insist   on   a  ."^^'"^'>V"™^  f" 
Neither  in   national   nor  m   private  aflfairs  is  it  oidinanly 
advisable  to  make  a  bluff  which  cannot  be  put  through - 
personally,   I  never  believe  in  doing  it  under  any  circum- 
stances.    The   Japanese    people    had   l^^'S","^'^^^ ,,      p'),"' 
bluflF  of  their  (Knernment;  and  the  unwisdom  of  the  t,ov- 
ernment's   action   in   the   matter   was   shown   by   the   great 
resentment  the  treaty  aroused  in  Japan,  although  it  was  so 
beneficial   to  Japan.     There  were  various  mob  outbreaks, 
especiallv  in  the    [apanese  cities;  the  police  were  roughly 
handled,-  and   several   Christian   churches  ^^-'-■'•^•,  ^"';"^^' ^^^ 
reported  to  me  by  the  American  Minister.     In  both  Russia 
and    lapan  I  believe  that  the  net  result  as  regards  myse 
was  -a  feeling  of  injury,   and  of  dishke  of  me    amor^  the 
people  at  large.     I  had  expected  this :  1  regarded  it  as  ui- 
tirelv  natural;  and   I   did  not   resent  it   in  the  least.     The 
(Governments  of  both  nations  behaved  tovvard  me  not  only 
with  a.rrect  and  entire  propriety    but  with  much  courtesy 
and  the  fullest  acknowledgment  <.f  the  good  effect  ot  what 
Thad  done ;  and  in  Japan,  at  least,  I  believe  that  the  leading 
men   sincerely    felt   that    I    had   been   thc-ir  friend      I   had 
certainlv  tried  my  best  to  be  the  friend  not  only  of  the- 
Tapanese  people  but  of  the  Russian  people    and  I  be  leve 
that  what  I  did  was  for  the  best  interests  of  both  and  of  the 

'TilfneXcou  se  of  the  negotiations  I  tried  to  enlist  the 
aid  of  the  Governments  of  one  nation  which  wa^  triendly  ig 
Russia  and  of  another  nation  which  was  friendly  to  japan, 
in  helpim:  bring  about  peace.      I  got  no  aid  from  either.      I 


TIIK   PKACK  OF   RIGHrEOrSNKSS 


587 


dill,  liuwcvcr,  rccri\f  aid  IK  mi  the  I'impcrui  <>f  (jt-rmany. 
His  Ambassador  al  St.  Pttcrsbur^'  was  tlu-  one  Ambassador 
who  helped  the  American  Ambassador,  Mr.  Meyer,  at  del- 
icate and  doubtful  points  of  the  negotiations.  \Ir.  Meyer, 
who  was,  with  the  e.xception  of  Mr.  White,  the  most  useful 
diplomat  in  the  American  service,  rendered  literally  inval- 
uable aid  by  insisting  upon 


himself  seeing  the  Czar  at 
critical  periods  of  the  tran.s- 
action,  when  it  was  no 
longer  possible  for  me  to 
act  successfully  through  the 
representatives  of  the  Czar, 
who  were  often  at  cross  pur- 
poses with  one  another. 

As  a  result  of  the  Ports- 
mouth peace,  1  was  given 
the  N'obel  Peace  Prize. 
This  consisted  of  a  medal, 
which  I  kept,  and  a  sum 
of  ^40,000,  which  I  turned 
over  as  a  foundation  of  in- 
dustrial peace  to  a  board 
of  trustees  which  included 
Oscar  Straus,  Seth  Low  nnd 
John  Mitchell.  In  the  nes- 
ent  state  of  the  world's  de- 
velopment industrial  peace 
is  even  more  essential  than 
international  peace  ;  and  it 
was  fitting  and  appropriate 

to  devote  the  peace  prize  to  such  a  purpose.  In  1910,  while 
in  Europe,  one  of  my  most  pleasant  experiences  was  my  visit 
to  Norway,  where  I  addressed  the  Nobel  Committee,  and  set 
forth  in  full  the  principles  upon  which  I  had  acted,  not  only 
in  this  particular  case  but  throughout  my  administration. 

I  received  another  gift  which  I  deeply  appreciated,  an  orig- 
inal copy  of  Sully's  "Memoires"  of  "Henry  le  Grand,"  sent 
me  with  the  following  inscription  (I  translate  it  roughly)  : 


tJKoKCK  VON  Li:N(.t;KKK  AIkvkr,  .Embassa- 
dor KXTR  AORDINARY  AND  PLENIPOTEN- 
TIARY  TO  RlsSIA. 


'  !1 


=  U 


588 


THEODORK 


ROOSFAEI.T  -    AN   AlTOBlOClRAPllY 
"  Paris,  J;  nuarv,  i'^- 

Design  of  Henry  I\     m  t  -  me-  -  ^^^^  ^^^^^^ 

keep  it  among  his  family  papers. 

The  signatures  include  those  of  Emile  Loubet   A   Carno^ 

"  Of'cou^i'wha'Yhad  done  in  connection  witl,  the  Ports- 

being  ever  necessary.     A  couple  of  days  after  P^ac^ 
ronrliidpd  I  wrote  to  a  friend:        L>on  t  you  uc  ui.  / 

the  fact  thatTust  at  the  moment  men  are  speakmg  well  of 


THE   PEACt:  OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 


S89 


me.  They  will  speak  ill  soon  enough.  As  Loeb  remarked 
to  me  to-day,  some  time  soon  I  shall  have  to  spank  some 
little  international  brigand,  and  then  all  the  well-meaning 
idiots  will  turn  and  shriek  that  this  is  inconsistent  with 
what  I  did  at  the  Peace  G)nfercnce,  whereas  in  reality  it 
will  be  exactly  in  line  with  it." 

To  one  of  my  political  opponents,  Mr.  Schurz,  who  wrote 
me  congratulating  me  upon  the  outcome  at  Portsmouth, 
and  suggesting  that  the  time  was  opportune  for  a  move 
towards  disarmament,  1  answered  in  a  letter  setting  forth 
views  which  I  thought  sound  then,  and  think  sound  now. 
The  letter  ran  as  follows : 

Oystkr  Hav,  N.  Y., 
Stptember  8,  1905. 

My  dear  Mr.  Schurz:  I  thank  you  for  your  congratu- 
lations. As  to  what  you  say  about  disarmament  —  which 
I  suppose  is  the  rough  equivalent  of  "the  gradual  diminu- 
tion of  the  oppressive  burdens  imposed  upon  the  world  by 
armed  peace"  -  I  am  not  clear  either  as  to  what  can  be 
done  or  what  ought  to  be  done.  If  I  had  been  known  as 
one  of  the  conventional  type  of  peace  advocates  I  could  have 
done  nothing  whatever  in  bringing  about  peace  now,  I 
would  be  powerless  in  the  future  to  accomplish  anything, 
and  1  would  not  have  been  able  to  help  confer  the  boons 
upon  Cuba,  the  Philippines,  Porto  Rico  and  Panama, 
brought  about  by  our  action  therein.  If  the  Japanese  had 
not  armed  during  the  last  twenty  years,  this  would  indeed 
be  a  sorrowful  century  for  Japan.  If  this  country  had  not 
fought  the  Spanish  War;  if  we  had  failed  to  take  the  action 
we  did  about  Panama;  all  mankind  would  have  been  the 
loser.  While  the  Turks  were  butchering  the  Armenians 
the  European  powers  kept  the  peace  and  thereby  addecl  a 
burden  of  infamy  to  the  Nineteenth  Century,  for  in  keeping 
that  peace  a  greater  number  of  lives  were  lost  than  in  any 
European  war  since  the  days  of  Napoleon,  and  these  lives 
were  those  of  women  and  children  as  well  as  of  men  ;  while 
the  moral  degradation,  the  brutality  inflicted  and  endured, 
the  aggregate  of  hideous  wrong  done,  surpassed  that  of  any 


■  ) 


590     THKODORK   ROOSKN  Kl/F  -  AN   M  lOBlCXiRAPHY 

war  of  which  wc  have-  record  in  modern  times.     Until  people 
>jct    it   firmlv   fixed   in   their  minds   that   peace  is   valuable 
chiefly  as  a  means  to  righteousness,  and  that  it  can  only  be 
considered  as  ai'  end  when  it  also  coincides  with  righteous- 
ness  we  can  do  onlv  a  limited  amount  to  advance  its  coming 
ont'his  earth.     There  is  of  course  no  analogy   at   present 
between   international   law  and   private  or   municipal   law, 
because  there  is  no  sanction  of  f<.rce  for  the  former,  while 
there   is   for   the   latter.      Inside  our  own   nation   the    aw- 
arding man  does'not  have  t..  arm  himself  against  the  law- 
less simply  because  there  is  some  armed  force       the  police-, 
the  sheriff's  posse,  the  national  guard,  the  regulars       which 
can  be  called  out  to  enforce  the  laws.     At  present  there  is 
no  similar  international  force  to  call  on,  and  I  do  not  as  yet 
see  how  it  could  at  present  be  created.      Hitherto  peace  has 
„ften  come  onlv  because  some  strong  and  on  the  whole  just 
power  has  bv 'a-nu-d  force,  or  the  threat  (.f  armed  force- 
put  a  stop  t.;  disorder.      In  a  very  interesting  French  book 
Ihe  other  dav   I   was  reading   how  the  Mediterranean  was 
freed  from  pirates  only  by  the  "pax  Bntannica,    established 
by     I'lngland's    naval     force.     The    hopelc-s..    and    hideous 
bloodshed    and   wickedness   of  Algiers   and  Turkestan   was 
stopped,  and  culd  only  be  stopped,  when  civilized  nations 
in  the  shape  of  Russia  and  France  took  possession  of  them. 
The  same  was  true  .)f  Burma  and  the  Malay  States,  as  well 
as  Kgvpt.  with  regard  to  Kngland.     Teace  has  come  only 
as  the  sequel  to  the  armed  interference  of  a  civilized  power 
which,  relativelv  to  its  opponent,  was  a  just  and  benehcent 
power      If   Kngland   had   disarmed   to   the   point   of  being 
unable  to  conquer  the  Soudan  and  protect  Kgypt,  so  that  the 
Mahdists  had  established  their  supremacy  in  northt-astern 
Africa,  the  result  would  have  been  a  horrible  and  bloody 
calamitv    to    mankind.     It    was    only    the    growth    of    the 
European  powers  in  military  efficiency  that  freed  eastern 
Europe  from  the  dreadful  scourge  of  the  Tartar  and  par- 
tially freed  it  from  the  dreadful  scourge  of  the  Turk      Lnjust 
war  is  dreadful;  a  just   war  may  he  the  highest  duty       lo 
have  the  best  nations,  the  free  and  civilized  nations,  disarm 
and  leave  the  despotisms  and  barbarisms  with  great  mill- 


'II IK    I'KACK  OF    KI(;irrK(HSNK.);> 


591 


tary  force,  woiiKI  {■><■  a  calamity  cumpatc-cl  to  uliicli  llic  ca- 
lamities caused  by  all  the  u;.rs  of  the  nineteenth  century 
would  be  trivial.  Vet  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  we  can 
by  international  agreement  state  exactly  which  power 
ceases  to  be  free  anci  civilized  and  which  comes  near  the  line 
of  barbarism  or  despotism.  For  example,  I  suppose  it 
would  be  very  difficult  to  get  Russia  and  Japan  to  come  to 
a  common  agreen'ent  on  this  point  ;  and  there  are  at  least 
some  citizens  of  other  na- 
tions, not  to  speak  of  their 
governments,  whom  it  would 
also  be  hard  to  get  together. 

This  does  not  in  the 
least  mean  that  it  is  hope- 
less to  make  the  eflfort.  It 
may  be  that  some  scheme 
will  be  developed.  Amer- 
ica, fortunately,  can  cor- 
dially assist  in  such  an 
eflFort,  for  no  one  in  his 
senses  would  suggest  our 
disarmament;  and  though 
we  shcjuld  continue  to  per- 
fect our  small  navy  and  our 
minute  army,  I  do  not  think 
it  necessary  to  increase  the 
number  of  our  ships  —  at 
any  rate  as  things  look  now 
—  nor  the  number  of  our  soldiers.  Of  course  our  navy  must 
be  kept  up  to  the  highest  point  of  efficiency,  and  the  replac- 
ing of  old  and  worthless  vessels  by  first-class  new  ones  may 
involve  an  increase  in  the  personnel ;  but  not  enough  to  in- 
terfere with  our  action  along  the  lines  \ou  have  suggested. 
But  before  I  would  know  how  to  advocate  such  action,  save 
in  some  such  way  as  commending  it  to  the  attention  of  The 
Hague  Tribunal,  I  would  have  to  have  a  feasible  and  ra- 
tional plan  of  action  presented. 

It  seems  to  me  that  a  general  stop  in  the  increase  of  the 
war  navies  of  the  world  might  be  a  good  thing;  but  I  would 


Modi'l  hy  (i    \  iKi'laiKl 

\i)ni;i.  Pkack  Prizk  Mkdai.liox. 

This  is  ;i  (lirict  reproduction  of  the  rivtrsr  of 
thi-  niid.illioii  which  miasuns  _■,",,  inchi-^  in 
lii.inuti-r.  On  thi-  ccl^;i;  ;ip|K,ir<cl  ihc  wdr(l> 
I'arlamcntum  Norvcgia:  Slt'MVl. 


'  n 


„2     THKODORK    ROOSIA  KIT  -  AN    M  TOBlOCmAPHY 

„.,l  like-  to  speak  tCM.  positively  offhand.  Of  ^'^^^''^'j. 
o  >■  in  continental  Kurope  that  the  ^'"7^"V;;;;;/7'  ^j 
and  before  advocating  action  as  '•SS'-^l'^'V ''"  "  I.  ™^ 
have  to  wcieh  matters  carefully  including  b>  tht  way 
such  a  mat  cr  a^thc  Turkish  army.  At  any  rate  nothing 
usefuf  cTn  be  done  unless  with  the  clear  recognmon  that 
we  obje-t  to  putting  peace  second  to  righteousness. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Hon.  Carl  Schurz,  Bolton  Landing, 
Lake  George,  N.  V. 

In  mv  o^^  ,  judgment  the  most  important  service  that  I 
re.de^d  U    peace  was  the  voyage  of  the  battle  fleet  round 
he  world  had  become  convinced  that  for  many  reasons 

t  wis  essent^ial  that  we  should  have  it  clearly  understcx^d, 
by  our  ovvn  people  especially,  but  also  by  other  peoples, 
that  the  Pacik  was  as  much  our  home  waters  as  the  Atlan- 
Vn'd  that  our  fleet  could  and  would  at  -H  pa-  ^ron.  one 
to  the  other  of  the  two  great  oceans.     U  "^^'"^V^  ^^  "^^ 
evident  that  such  a  voyage  would  greatly  benefit  the  iiavy 
tsc^      vv  uld   arouse   popular  interest   in   and   enthusiasm 
or    he  navy  and  would  make  foreign  nations  accept  as 
a  matter  oc^ure  that  our  fleet  should  from  tinrie  to  time 
be  eathercd  in  the  Pacific,  just  as  from  time  to  time  it  was 
fathered  in  the  Atlantic,  ^nd  that  its  presence  '"  on^^^J^" 
l^asno  more  to  be  accepted  as  a.  mark  of  host.it^^    o  any 
\siatic  DOwer  than    ts  presence  in  the  Atlantic  was  to  ot 
ac^epted^s  a  mark  of  hostility  to  any  European  powe. 
rSermined  on  the  move  without  consulting  the  Cabine  , 
nrec  sely  as  I  took  Panama  without  consu  ting  the  Cabinet 
A  council  of  war  never  fights,  and  in  a  crisis  the  duty  of  a 
feadTis'toleL^and  not  tl  take  -fuge  bel^nd^he  generaj^ly 
timid  wisdom  of  a  multitude  ocounctors.     A    tha^t^tjm^^^ 
as  I  happen  to  know,  neither  tnc  ^ngsisi.  n--   y> 


SOCIAL  AND   INDl'STRIAL  JISIKI. 


.S<>3 


own  fleets  could  perform  the  feat,  and  still  Uss  did  tlicy 
believe  that  the  American  fleet  could.      1  made  up  my  mind 
tiiat  it  was  time  to  have  a  shiw  down  in  the  ntatter;  because 
if  it  was  really  true  that  our  fleet  could  not  ^'et  from  tlie  At- 
lantic to  the  Pacific,  it  was  much  better  to  know  it  and  be 
able  to  shape  our  policy  in  view  of  the  knowledge.     Many 
persons  publicly  and  privately  protested  against  the  move 
on  the  ground  that  Japan  would  accept  it  as  a  threat.     To 
this  I  answered  nothing  in  public.     In  private  I   said  that  I 
did  not  believe  Japan  would  so  regard  it  because  Japan  knew 
my  sincere  friendship  and  admiration  for  her  and  realized  that 
we  could  not  as  a  Nation  have  any  intention  of  attacking 
her;  and  that  if  there  were  any  such  feeling  on  the  part  <>f 
Japan  as  was  alleged  that  very  fact  rendered  it  imperative 
that  that  fleet  should  go.     When  in  the  spring  of  igio  I  was  in 
Kurope  I  was  interested  to  find  that  high  naval  authorities 
in  both  (lermany  and  Italy  had  expected  that  war  would 
come  at  the  time  of  the  voyage.     They  asked  me  if  I  had 
not  been  afraid  of  it,  and  if  I  had  not  expected  that  hostil- 
ities would  begin  at  least  by  the  time  that  the  fleet  reached 
the  Str?its  of  Magellan  .'     I  answered  that  I  did  not  expect 
it ;  that  I  believed  that  Japan  would  feel  as  friendly  in  the 
matter  as  we  did ;  but  that  if  my  expectations  had  proved 
mistaken,  it  would  have  been  proof  positiv:  that  we  wet^e 
going  to  be  attacked  anyhow,  and  that  in  such  event  it 
would  have  been  an  enormous  gain  to  have  had  the  three 
months'    preliminary   preparation   which   enabled   the   fleet 
to  start  perfectly  equipped.     In  a  personal  interview  before 
they  left  I  had  explained  to  the  officers  in  command  that  I 
believed  the  trip  would  be  ov  of  absolute  peace,  but  that 
they  were   to   take  exact'y   the   same   precautions   against 
sudden  attack  of  any  kind  as  if  we  were  at  war  with  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  ;  and  that  no  excuse  of  any  kind  would  be 
accepted  if  there  were  a  sudden  attack  of  any  kind  and  we 
were  taken  unawares. 

My  prime  purpose  was  to  impress  the  American  people ; 
and  this  purpose  was  fully  achieved.  The  cruise  did  make 
a  very  deep  impression  abroad ;  boasting  about  what  we 
have  done  does  not  impress  foreign  nations  at  all,  except 


THE   PEACE  OF   RICH TEOLSNESS 


S9S 


unfavorably,  but  positive  acliievemcnt  docs ;  and  the  two 
American  achievements  that  really  impressed  foreign  peoples 
during  the  first  dozen  years  of  this  century  were  the  digging 
of  the  Panama  Canal  and  the  cruise  of  the  battle  fleet 
round  the  world.  But  the  impression  made  on  our  own 
people  was  of  far  greater  consequence.  Xo  single  thing 
in  the  history  of  the  new  United  States  Navy  has  done  as 
much  to  stimulate  popular  interest  and  belief  in  it  as  the 
world  cruise.  This  effect  was  forecast  in  a  well-informed 
and  friendly  English  periodical,  the  London  Spectator. 
Writing  in  October,  1907,  a  month  before  the  fleet  sailed 
from  Hampton  Roads,  the  Sprctator  said: 

"All  o\er  America  the  people  will  follow  the  movements 
of  the  fleet ;  the\-  will  learn  something  of  the  intricate  details 
of  the  coaling  and  commissariat  work  under  warlike  condi- 
tions;  and  in  a  word  their  attention  will  be  aroused.  Xext 
lime  Mr.  Roosevelt  or  his  representatives  appeal  to  the 
country  for  new  battleships  they  will  do  so  to  people  whose 
minds  have  been  influenced  one  way  or  the  other.  The 
naval  programme  will  not  have  stood  still.  We  are  sure  that, 
apart  from  increasing  the  efliciency  of  the  existing  fleet, 
this  is  the  aim  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  in  mind.  He  has 
a  policy  which  projects  itself  far  into  the  future,  but  it  is  an 
entiri'  misreading  of  it  to  suppose  that  it  is  aimed  narrowly 
and  definitely  at  any  single  Power." 

I  first  directed  the  fleet,  of  sixteen  battleships,  to  go 
round  through  the  Straits  of  Magellan  to  San  Francisco. 
From  thence  I  (^dered  them  to  New  Zealand  and  Aur.ralia, 
then  to  the  Philippines,  China  and  japan,  and  home  through 
Suez  -they  stopped  in  the  Mediterranean  to  help  the 
sufferers  from  the  eartlujuake  at  .Messina,  by  the  way,  and 
did  this  work  as  effectively  as  they  had  done  all  their  other 
work,  .\dmiral  Kvans  commanded  the  fleet  to  San  p>an- 
cisco;  there  Admiral  Sperry  took  it;  Admirals  Thomas, 
Wain  Wright  and  Schroeder  rendered  distinguished  service 
under  Kvans  and  Sperry.  'I'he  coaling  and  c)ther  prep- 
arations were  made  in  such  excellent  shajx'  b)  the  Depart- 
ment that  there  wa-  nvvvv  a  liitcli.  not  ^o'nuKh  as  the 
delay    of   an    hour,    in    kei'piiig    i^veiy    aiipointinent    made. 


596     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

\11  the  repairs  were  made  without  difficulty    the  ship  con- 
cerned merely  falling  out  of  column  for  a  few  hours,  and 
when  the  job  was  done  steaming  at  speed  until  she  regained 
her  position.     Not  a  ship  was  left  in  any  port;  and  there 
was  hardly  a  desertion.     As  soon  as  it  was  known  that  the 
voyage  was  to  be  undertaken  men  crowded  to  enlist    just 
as  freely  from  the  Mississippi  Valley  as    rom  the  seaboard 
and  for  the  first  time  since  the  Spanish  War  the  ships  put  to 
sea  overmanned  ^-  and   by   as    stalwart    a    set  of    men-of-^ 
war's  men  as  ever  looked  through  a  porthole,  game  for  a 
fight  <.r  a  frolic,  but  withal  so  self-respecting  and  with  such 
a'sense  of  responsibility  that  in  all  the  F»f -"  -';-!'^    ;^;y 
landed  their  conduct  was  exemplary.      I  he  fleet   practiced 
incessantly  during  the  voyage,  both  with  the  gun«  ^"^  m 
battle  tactics,  and  came  home  a  much  more  efficient  fighting 
instrument   than   when   it  started    sixteen    months    before. 
The  best  men  of  command  rank  in  our  own  service  were 
confident  that  the  fleet  would  go  round  in  safety,  in  spite 
of  the  incredulity  of  foreign  critics.     Even  they,  l^"weyer 
did  not  believe  that  it  was  wise  to  send  the  torpedo  cratt 
around.     I  accordingly  acquiesced  in  their  views  as  it  did  not 
occur  to  me  to  consult  the  lieutenants.     But  shortly  before 
the  fleet  started,   I  went  in  the  Government  yacht   xMay- 
flovver  to  inspect   the  target  practice  off  iVovincetown.     I 
was  accompanied  bv  two  torpedo  boat  destroyers,  in  charge 
of    a    couple   of    naval    lieutenants,    thorough    gamecocks; 
and    I  had  the  two  lieutenants   aboard   to   dine  one  even- 
ing     Towards   the  end   of  the   dinner  they  could   not   re- 
frain from  asking  if  the  torpedo  flotilla   was   to  go    round 
with    the    big   ships.      I    told   them   no,    that   the  admirals 
and  captains  did  not  believe  that  the  torpedo  boats  could 
stand  it,  and  believed  that  the  officers  and  crews  aboard 
the  cockle  shells  would  be  worn  out  by  the  constant  pitching 
and  bouncing  and  the  everlasting  need  to  make  repairs.     My 
two   guests   chorused    an    eager   assurance   that    the    boats 
could  stand   it.     They   assured   me  that    the  enlisted   men 
were  even  more  anxious  tf.  go  than  were  the  officers,  men- 
tioning that  on  one  <.f  their  boats  the  terms  of  enlistment 
of  most  of  the  crew  were  out,  and  the  men  were  waiting  to 


THE   PEACE  OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 


597 


sec  whether  or  not  to  reenlist,  as  they  did  not  care  to  do  so 
unless  the  boats  were  to  go  on  the  cruise.  I  answered  that  ] 
was  only  too  glad  to  accept  the  word  of  ttie  nuii  wlm  were  to 
dt)  the  job,  and  that  they  should  certainly  go;  and  within 
half  an  hour  1  sent  out  the  order  for  the  Hcjtilla  to  be  got 
ready.  It  went  round  in  fine  shape,  not  a  boat  being  laid 
up.  I  felt  that  the  feat  reflected  even  more  credit  upon  the 
navy  than  did  the  circumnavigation  of  the  big  ships,  and 
I  wrote  the  flotilla  commander  the  following  letter  : 


^  May  1 8,  1908. 

My  dear  Captain  Cone: 

A  great  deal  of  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  feat  of 
our  battleship  fleet  in  encirciUg  South  America  and  getting 
to  San  Francisco;  and  it  would  be  hard  too  highly  to 
compliment  the  officers  and  enlisted  men  of  that  fleet  for 
what  they  have  done.  Vet  if  I  should  draw  any  distinction 
at  all  it  would  be  in  favor  of  you  and  your  associates  who 
have  taken  out  the  torpedo  flotilla.  Yours  was  an  even 
more  notable  feat,  and  every  officer  and  every  enlisted  man 
in  the  torpedo  boat  flotilla  has  the  right  to  feel  that  he 
has  rendered  distinguished  service  to  the  United  States 
navy  and  therefore  to  the  people  of  the  United  States ;  and 
I  wish  I  could  thank  each  of  them  personally.  Will  you 
have  this  letter  read  by  the  commanding  officer  of  each 
torpedo  boat  to  his  officers  and  crew  .' 

Sincerely  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Lieutenant  Commander  Hitch.  T.  Cone,  U.  S.  N., 
Commanding  Second  Torpedo  Flotilla, 
Care  Postmaster,  San  Franscico,  Cal. 


There  were  various  amusing  features  connected  with  the 
trip.  Most  of  the  wealthy  people  and  "leaders  of  opinion" 
in  the  Eastern  cities  were  panic-struck  at  the  proposal  to  take 
the  fleet  away  from  Atlantic  waters.     The  great  New  York 


59S     THKODORK    kOOSKX  Kl/l'      AN   Al  TOlilOCRAPHY 

dailies  issiK-a  f. am icappc-als"  to  OmgiTss  to  stop  tlir  iUvt 
from  going.  TIk-  head  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Naval 
\flFairs  announced  that  tlie  fleet  should  not  and  could  not  go 
because  Congress  would  refuse  to  appropriate  the  money  — 
he  being  from  an  Eastern  seaboard  State.  However,  1  an- 
nounced in  response  that  I  had  enough  nrioney  to  take  the 
fleet  around  to  the  Pacific  anylu.w,  that  the  fleet  would  cer- 
tainly go,  and  that  if  Congress  did  not  choose  to  appropriate 
enough  money  to  get  the  fleet  back,  whv,  it  would  stay  m 
the   Pacific.     There  was    no    further    difficulty    about    the 

""h'was  not  originallv  my  intention  that  the  fleet  should 
visit  Australia,  but  the  Australian  C^.overniiient  sent  a  most 
cordial  invitation,  which   I  gladly  accepted;  for  I  have    as 
everv  American  ought   to  have,   a   hearty  admiration  for, 
and  fellow  feeling  with,  Australia,  and  1  believe  that  America 
sh.Hild  be  ready  to  stand  back  <.f  Australia  m  any  serious 
emerKcncv.     The  reception  aca^-ded  the  fleet  in  Australia 
was  wonderful,  and  it  sh..wed  the  fundamental  community 
of  feeling  between  ..urselves  and  the  great  commonwealth 
of  the  South  Seas.     The  considerate,  generous,  and  open- 
handed  hospitalitv  with  whicli  the  entire  Australian  people 
treated  our  officer's  and  men  could  not  havc>  been  surpassed 
had  thev  been  our  own  countrymen.     The  fleet  first  visited 
Sidnev, 'which  has  a  singularly  beautiful  harbor.      1  h e  dav 
after  'the  arrival  one  (^f  our  captains  noticed  a  member  ot 
his  crew  trying  to  go  to  sleep  on  a  bench  in  the  park.     He 
had   fi.xed   above  his   head   a   large  paper  with   some   l.nes 
evidently  designed  to  forestall  any  questions  from  Inendly 
would-be  hosts :  'T  am  delighted  with  the  Australian  people. 
I  think  your  harbor  the  finest  in  the  world.     I  am  very  tired 
and  would  like  to  go  to  sleep."  .  .i      .. 

The  most  noteworthy  incident  of  the  cruise  was  the  re- 
ception given  to  our  fleet  in  Japan.  In  courtesy  and  good 
breeding,  the  Japanese  can  certainly  teach  much  to  the 
nations  of  the  Western  world.  I  had  been  very  sure  that 
the  people  of  Japan  would  understand  aright  what  the 
cruise  meant,  and  would  accept  the  visit  of  our  fleet  as  tn<- 
signal  honor  which  it  was  meant  to  be,  a  proof  ot  the  lugn 


THE   PEACE  OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 


599 


regard  and  friendship  I  felt,  and  which  I  was  certain  the 
American  people  felt,  for  the  great  Island  Empire.  The 
event  even  surpassed  my  expectations.  I  cannot  too 
strongly  express  my  appreciation  of  the  generous  courtesy 
the  Japanese  showed  the  officers  and  crews  of  our  fleet; 
and  I  may  add  that  every  man  of  them  came  back  a  friend 
and  admirer  of  the  Japanese.  Admiral  Sperry  wrote  me  a 
letter  of  much  interest,  dealing  not  only  with  the  reception 
in  Tokio  but  with  the  work  of  our  men  at  sea  ;  I  herewith  give 
it  almost  in  full : 

28  October,  1908. 

Dear  Mr.  Roosevdt: 

My  official  report  of  the  visit  to  Japan  goes  forward  in 
this  mail,  but  there  are  certain  aspects  of  the  affair  so  success- 
fully concluded  which  cannot  well  be  included  in  the  report. 

You  are  perhaps  aware  that  Mr.  Denison  of  the  Japanese 
Foreign  Office  was  one  of  my  colleagues  at  The  Hague, 
for  whom  I  have  a  very  high  regard.  Desiring  to  avoid 
every  possibility  of  trouble  or  misunderstanding,  I  wrote 
to  him  last  June  explaining  fully  the  character  pf  our  men, 
which  they  have  so  well  lived  up  to,  the  desirability  of  ample 
landing  places,  guides,  rest  houses  and  places  for  changing 
money  in  order  that  there  might  be  no  delay  in  getting  the 
men  away  from  the  docks  on  the  excursions  in  which  they 
delight.  \'ery  few  of  them  »  into  a  drinking  place,  except 
to  get  a  resting  place  not  to  i>e  found  elsewhere,  paying  for 
it  by  taking  a  drink. 

I  also  explained  our  system  of  landing  with  liberty  men 
an  unarmed  patrol,  properly  officered,  to  quietly  take  in 
charge  and  send  off  to  their  ships  any  men  who  showed  the 
slightest  trace  of  disorderly  conduct.  This  letter  he  showed 
to  the  Xlinister  of  the  Xavy,  who  highly  approved  of  all 
our  arrangements,  including  the  patrol,  of  which  I  feared 
they  might  be  jealous.  Mr.  Denison's  reply  reached  me  in 
Manila,  with  a  memorandum  from  the  Minister  of  the  Xavy 
which  removed  all  doubts.  Three  temporary  piers  were  built 
for  our  boat  landings,  each  300  feet  long,  brilliantly  lighted 
and  decorated.    Thesleeping  accommodations  did  not  permit 


M 


I 


I'll 


600     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

two  or  three  thousand  sailors  to  remain  on  shore,  but  the 
ample  landings  permitted  them  to  be  handled  night  and  day 
with  perfect  order  and  safety.  .     ^r  1    l  u 

\t  the  landings  and  railroad  station  m  Yokohama  there 
were    rest    houses    or    booths,    reputable    money    changers 

and  as  many  as  a 
thousand      English- 
speaking     Japanese 
college  students  acted 
as   volunteer    guides, 
besides  Japanese  sail- 
ors and  petty  officers 
detailed  for  the  pur- 
pose.    In  Tokyo  there 
were    a    great    many 
excellent  refreshment 
places,  where  the  men 
got     excellent    meals 
and  could  rest,  smoke 
and  write  letters,  and 
in  none  of  these  places 
would  they  allow  the 
men  to  pay  anything, 
though   they  were 
more  than    ready    to 
do  so.     The  arrange- 
ments   were    marvel- 
ously  perfect. 

As  soon  as  your  tele- 
gram of  October  18, 
giving  the  address  to 
be  made  to  the  Em- 
peror, was  received,  1  gave  copies  of  it  to  our  ;\mbassador 
to  be  sent  to  the  Foreign  Office.     It  seems  that  the  Emperor 
had  already  prepared  a  very  cordial  address  to  be  forwarded 
through  me  to  vou,  after  delivery  at  the  audience,  but  your 
telegram  reversed  tlie  situation  and  his  reply  was  prepared. 
1  am  convinced  that  your  kind  and  courteous  initiative  on 
this  occasion  helped  cause  the  pleasant  feeling  which  was  so 


eop>Tlght  by  UnderwiKul  aii:l  Inlcrwooil. 
SKNATOk    LoWiK.. 


THE   PEACE  OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 


6oi 


obvious  in  the  Emperor's  bearing  at  the  luncheon  which  fol- 
lowed the  audience.  X.,  who  is  reticent  and  conservative, 
told  me  that  not  only  the  Emperor  but  all  the  Ministers 
were  profoundly  gratified  by  the  course  of  events.  I  am 
confident  that  not  even  the  most  trifling  incident  has  taken 
place  which  could  in  any  way  mar  the  general  satisfaction, 
and  our  Ambassador  has  expressed  m  me  his  great  satisfac- 
tion with  all  that  has  taken  place. 

Owing  to  heavy  weather  encountered  on  the  passage 
up  from  Manila  the  fleet  was  obliged  to  take  about  3500 
tons  of  coal. 

The  >'ankton  remained  behind  to  keep  up  communica- 
tion for  a  few  days,  and  yesterday  she  transmitted  the 
Emperor's  telegram  to  you,  which  was  sent  in  reply  to  your 
message  through  our  Ambassador  after  the  sailing  of  the 
fleet.  It  must  be  profoundly  gratifying  to  you  to  have  the 
mission  on  which  you  sent  the  fleet  terminate  so  happily, 
and  I  am  profoundly  thankful  that,  owing  to  the  confi- 
dence which  you  displayed  in  giving  me  this  command,  my 
active  career  draws  to  a  close  with  such  honorable  distinction. 

As  for  the  eff"ect  of  the  cruise  upon  the  training,  discipline 
and  eff^ectiveness  of  the  fleet,  the  good  cannot  be  exaggerated. 
It  is  a  war  game  in  every  detail.  The  wireless  communica- 
tion has  been  maintained  with  an  efficiency  hitherto  unheard 
of.  Between  Honolulu  and  Auckland,  3850  miles,  we  were 
out  of  communication  with  a  cable  station  for  only  one  night, 
whereas  three  |n(ni-American]  men-of-war  trying  recently  to 
maintain  a  chain  of  only  1250  miles,  between  Auckland  and 
Sydney,  were  only  able  to  do  so  for  a  few  hours. 

The  officers  and  men  as  soon  as  we  put  to  sea  turn  to 
their  gunnery  and  tactical  work  far  more  eagerly  tlian  they 
go  to  functions.  Every  morning  certain  ships  leave  the 
column  and  move  ofl"  seven  or  eight  thousand  yards  as  targets 
for  range  measuring  fire  control  and  battery  practice  for 
the  others,  and  at  night  certain  ships  do  the  same  thing  for 
night  battery  practice.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  this  practice 
i^  ini-<atisfacti>r}  ,  and  in  s<>me  p^itits  inislcjiding,  mviiig  to 
the  fact  that  the  ships  are  painted  white.  .At  Portland,  in 
1903,  I  saw  .\dmiral  Barker's  white  battleships  under  the 


602     THEODORF.   ROOSFA  KLT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

searchlights  of  the  army  at  a  distance  of  14,000  yards 
seven  sea  miles,  without  glasses,  while  the  Hartford,  a  black 
ship,  was  never  discovered  at  all,  though  she  pasjed  wjth 
a  mile  and  a  half.  I  have  for  years,  vvh.le  a  member  of  the 
C;eneral  Board,  advocated  painting  the  slups  war  color  at 
a  times,  and  bv  this  mail  I  am  asking  the  Department  to 
make  the  necessary  change  in  the  Regulations  and  paint  the 
ships  properlv.  I  do  not  know  that  any  one  now  dissents 
from  my  view.  Admiral  Wainwnght  strongly  concurs, 
and  the  War  College  Conference  recommended  it  year  atter 
vear  without  a  dissenting  voice.  , 

In    the     afternoons    the    fleet    has    two   or    three    hours 
practice  at  battle  maneuvers,  which  excite  as  keen  interest 
as  gunnery  e.\ercises.  ,, 

The  competition  in  coal  economy  goes  on  automatically 
and  reacts  in  a  hundred  ways.  It  has  reduced  the  waste 
in  the  use  of  electric  light  and  water,  and  certain  chie 
engineers  are  said  to  keep  men  ranging  over  the  ships  all 
night  turning  out  every  light  not  in  actual  and  immediate  use. 
Perhaps  the  most  important  efTect  is  the  keen  hunt  for  de- 
fects in  the  machinery  causing  waste  of  power  I  he 
Yankton  by  resetting  valves  increased  her  speed  from 
10  to  11'  knots  on  the  same  expenditure.  , 

All  this  has  been  done,  but  the  field  is  widening,  the  work 
has  only  begun. 

******  * 

C.  S.  Sperry. 

When  I  left  the  Presidency  I  finished  seven  and  a  half 
years  of  administration,  during  which  not  one  shot  had  been 
fired  against  a  foreign  foe.  We  were  at  absolute  peace,  and 
there  was  no  nation  in  the  world  with  whom  a  war  cloud 
threatened,  no  nation  in  the  world  whom  we  had  wronged, 
or  from  whom  we  had  anything  to  fear.  The  cruise  of  the 
battle  fleet  was  not  the  least  of  the  causes  which  ensured 
so  peaceful  an  outlook.  , 

\\hen  the  fleet  returned  after  its  sixteen  months  voyage 
aroiuul  the  world  I  went  down  to  Hampton  Roads  to  greet 


Till".  PKACK  OK  Ricirn.orsNKss 


6oj 


il.  Tlic  il;i)  w.is  \\  iisliiii^iiin's  liinlulay,  Krbruary  Zl,  1907. 
Literally  on  the  miiiulc  ilu-  lioiuing  battlecraft  came  into 
view.  On  the  flagship  of  the  yVdmiral  I  spoke  to  the  officers 
and  enlisted  men,  as  follows  : 

''\ldmiral  Spt-rry,  Officers  and  Men  of  the  Battle  Fleet: 

"Over  a  year  has  passed  since  you  steamed  out  of  this 


I'RKSIDKNT   KoOSKVb.l.l   AMI   TllK    (il  S    I'OINTKKS  OK  TlIK    I'.   S     K  \rri  KSIIIl'    MlsSdlKI. 


harbor,  and  over  the  world's  rim,  and  this  morning  the 
hearts  of  all  who  saw  you  thrilled  with  pride  as  the  hulls 
of  the  mighty  warships  lifted  above  the  horizon.  Vou 
have  been  in  the  Northern  and  the  Southern  Hemispheres ; 
four  times  you  have  crossed  the  line;  you  have  steamed 
through  all  the  great  oceans ;  you  have  touched  the  coast 
of  every  continent.  Ever  your  general  course  has  been 
westward;    and  now  you  come  back,  to  the  port  from  which 


» 

'll 


THK   PKACE  OF  RIGHTEOUSNKSS 


60s 


you  set  sail.  This  is  the  first  battle  fleet  that  has  ever  cir- 
cumnavijjatcd  the  globe.  Those  who  perform  the  feat  again 
can  but  follow  in  your  f(K)tstcps. 

"The  little  torpeo  flotilla  went  with  you  around  St)Uth 
America,  through  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  to  our  own  Pacific 
Coast.  The  armored  cruiser  squadron  met  you,  and  left 
you  again,  when  you  were  half  way  round  the  world. 
Vou  have  falsified  every  prediction  of  the  prophets  of  failure. 
In  all  your  long  cruise  not  an  accident  worthy  of  mention 
has  happened  to  a  single  battleship,  nor  yet  to  the  cruisers 
or  torpedo  boats.  Vou  left  this  coast  in  a  high  state  of  battle 
efficiency,  and  you  return  with  your  efficiency  increased; 
better  prepared  than  when  you  left,  not  only  in  personnel  but 
even  in  material.  During  your  world  cruise  you  have  taken 
your  regular  gunnery  practice,  and  skilled  though  you  were 
before  with  the  guns,  you  have  grown  more  skilful  still; 
and  through  practice  you  have  improved  in  battle  tactics, 
though  here  there  is  more  room  for  improvement  than  in 
your  gunnery.  Incidentally,  I  suppose  I  need  hardly  say 
that  one  measure  of  your  fitness  must  be  your  clear  recog- 
nition of  the  need  always  steadily  to  strive  to  render  your- 
selves more  fit;  if  you  ever  grow  to  think  that  you  are  fit 
enough,  you  can  make  up  your  minds  that  from  that  moment 
you  will  begin  to  go  backward. 

"As  a  war  machine,  the  fleet  comes  back  in  better  shape 
than  it  went  out.  In  addition,  you,  the  officers  and  men  of 
this  formidable  fighting  force,  have  shown  yourselves  the 
best  of  all  possible  ambassadors  and  heralds  of  peace. 
Wherever  you  have  landed  you  have  borne  yourselves  so 
as  to  make  us  at  home  proud  of  being  your  countrymen. 
Vou  have  shown  that  the  best  type  of  fighting  man  of  the  sea 
knows  how  to  appear  to  the  utmost  possible  advantage  when 
his  business  is  to  behave  himself  on  shore,  and  to  make  a 
good  impression  in  a  foreign  land.  We  are  proud  of  all  the 
ships  and  all  the  men  in  this  whole  fleet,  and  we  welcome  you 
home  to  the  coimtry  whose  good  repute  among  nations 
has  been  raised  bv  what  vou  have  done." 


'I'HK  TRISTS.  TlIK 


APPKNDIX   A 

PKOPI.K,  ANH    IIIK  SOIARK  OKAL 

ill  III  ilisMilvf  llif  >Uil 


i«,„u.,,.u,,_nM,T....;.;.i;.;i|;;.';.i;;;:,|-;;f;;,;;;;„,i,,,,  ,,,,,,,.■,,, .., 

^rTe\ha    the  c"     ulJ  iK.  c  catcd  a  (M-vernmctal  board  or  co.u- 
("..minprcf    Commission,   nut   coNinii),    im        ,    ,  .  ,       i      ii     u,. 

nnaatred  in  inlcr-Statf  commerce.  ,     , 

cngagea  in  .mi  ..  ,  •     ,  ,^,;,|j  vvhom.  »ven  more  than  with  the 

A  member  ol  my  LaDin<  i  i-msm  wi. m.  trust 

606 


A' 


\l)l\   A 


f>o7 


(lartii'M.  lie  writes  me  as  tmic  vs  concorninu  tlu-  suit  aKaiiist  the 
Slft'l  C'oi ('oral ion  : 

''XoihiiiK  ai'iH-aicil  luforr  tlu  House  Committee  that  made  me 
believe  we  were  iljieivcil  by  Judjre  (]ary. 

"This,  I  think,  is  a  case  that  shows  clearly  the  difference  between 
destructive  litigation  and  lonstructive  legislation.  I  have  not  yet 
seen  a  full  copy  of  the  (lovernnient's  petition,  but  our  papers  ^r'ive 
nothing  that  indicates  any  kind  of  unfair  or  dishonest  competition 
such  as  exi>ted  in  lioth  the  Standard  Oil  and  Tobacco  Cases. 
As  I  understand  it,  the  competitors  of  the  Steel  Company  have 
steadil)  increased  in  strength  duriin:  the  last  six  or  seven  years. 
I'urthermore.  the  per  cent  of  the  business  done  by  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration has  decreased  during  that  lime.  As  sou  will  remember, 
at  our  first  conference  with  Jud>;e  (iary,  the  Judjie  stated  that  it 
.vas  the  desire  and  purpose  of  the  Company  to  "conform  to  what  the 
("lovernment  wished,  it  bein^'  the  purpose  of  the  Company  abso- 
lutely to  obey  the  law  both  in  spirit  and  letter.  Throujrhout  the 
time  that  I  had  charjre  of  the  investigation,  and  while  we  were  in 
\\  ashinv'ton.  I  do  not  know  of  a  sinjrie  instance  where  the  Steel 
Company  refused  any  information  requested  ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, aided  in  every  possible  way  our  investijjation. 

"I'he  position  now  taken  by  the  (lovernment  is  absolutely  de- 
structive of  legitimate  business,  because  they  outline  no  rule  of  con- 
duct for  business  of  any  majjnitude.  It  is  absurd  to  say  that  the 
courts  can  lay  down  such  rules.  The  most  the  courts  can  do  is  to 
find  as  le>;al  or  ille^ral  the  particular  transactions  brought  before 
them.  Hence,  after  years  of  tedious  litigation  there  would  be  no 
clear-cut  rule  for  future  action.  This  method  of  procedure  is  deal- 
ing with  the  device,  not  the  result,  and  drives  business  to  the 
elaboration  of  clever  devices,  each  of  which  must  be  tested  in  the 
courts. 

"  I  have  yet  to  find  a  better  method  of  dealing  with  the  anti-trust 
situation  than  that  suggested  by  the  bill  which  we  agreed  upon  in 
the  last  days  of  your  .Administration.  That  bill  should  be  used  as 
a  basis  for  legislation,  and  there  could  be  incorporated  upon  it 
whatever  may  be  determined  wise  regarding  the  direct  control 
and  supervision  of  the  .National  (k)vernment,  either  through  a 
commission  similar  to  the  Inter-Stale  Commerce  Commission  or 
otherwise." 

Before  taking  up  the  matter  in  its  large  aspect.  \  wish  to  say  one 
\vord  as  to  one  feature  of  the  (Government  suit  against  the  Steel 
Corporation.  (Jnc  '^*  the  grounds  for  the  suit  is  the  acquisition  by 
the  Steel  Corporatio.  of  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Companv ; 


,.H     THEOncmi-    ROOSKMU/r-    AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHV 

,„,    ;,    has    hcnwdlcH.  <-   'He  au.honty  ;^  the  CW^ 

officials  cnKa>.'ea  m  carrym^^  J''  H^rc  'su  a.  ves  cf  the  Steel 
transaction  I  was  nusU.l  ;>  '^^,;;,.'^  ,",;,. ^at eh  or  truth- 
Corroration  and  tha.  he  -.;;;',;,  „„,,,,.■  1  believed 
fully  laid  before  me.  •;'^  'J^^"^'^';^  ,,.,.,,.  as  represented  to  me 
at  the  lime  that  the  fact  in  ^JJ^f^'^  ;']'^,.  f^Aher  knowledge 
on  behalf  of  the  Steel  ^^''H^o  at  o,      and  m^  ^^^   ^.^^ 

has  convinced  me  that  th^  vas  ^rue.  '  ^e'  ^^j^^  ,„,d  n.e  the 
that  the  representat.ves  "^  J^*^ J^  j\^  ^^ked  in  the  percent- 
truth  as  to  the  change  hat  v.oud  be  .^^  would  give 
age  of  the  busmess  «hich  the  proj  ;»  ,  convinced  me 
the  Steel  Corporation,  ^"^^  j^^'^'.Jj '^"'fhe  representatives  of 
that  they  did  so.  I  ^^'f  ""  '"'^e  \ruth  as  to  what  the 
the    Steel    Corporation    to  d    me  ^hc    truth  ,,atement 

effect  of  the  action   at   ^»\\\;'"^^^.^  ^p^esematives    of    the    Steel 
that    I    was    misled    or    that    ^^t    represent  ^^  ^^^ 

Corporation  did  not  thus  tell  "^f^^'^^e  truth  as  ^«  ^"y^^„,;„„^  ^f 
case  is  itself  not  in  accordance  with    h^  jm^      In  /  ^^  ^^^ 

August   ,9.  '-^.^l^Xe^fle  Hous^^^  -  ^^'f 

Investigating  Committee  oi  "'^  ,  .  /  afl^rm  everything  I 

matter.  That  ^^^^--"^-.S^cc^rrel  but  aTso  as  to  my  belief 
therein  said,  not  only  as  to  what  "^^""'^^  _  j  j^^j  the  action 
in  the  wisdom  and  P'-^"*^^^"^^^,";.'^  have  bee^  a  calamity 
not  merely  was  wise  and  PF^P^V^^^^^^^^"  ^  On  page  n7  of  the 
from  every  standpoint  had  I  ^^^'''1^,^"/.?,^^^^^ 
printed  report  of  the  testimony  befor^heC^^^^^^  ^^^  ^^^ 

JudL-e  (^.ary's  account  o    the  "l^^''"J.;7^.^.^,^„t  states  the  facts 

^"^^  TJ.  ''u  l:X:'  aTleTeithlt  thr  Sase  by  the  Steel 

S^r^po  alion  of  thrpro^^erty  of  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  I r^^^ 

panl-  gave  the  Steel  Co^-^'rhe^i^  ^isUth:? tEe  Umac 
Southern  iron  ores  — that  IS,  ottncr  ^^^^^   ^^ 

and  the  Ohio.  My  'f  °^"^^^'";'  ^Hrto  be  challenged,  is  that, 
believe  is  accurate  and  "°1  ^^^/^.te  ^Corporation  hal  including 
c,f  these  Southern  iron  ""^f^jlV"  nnes  ee  Coal  and  Iron  Company, 
the  property  gained  from  the  T^^"""  ^^J^^'J'  ^.^  cent.  This  is  a 
less  \han  20  per  cent        P^^^^JP^n^^^-;^^  J;„^,\^  ,'  ;,  holds  of  the 

Se  s;;^r^::;::,^sx^S^^ 


APPENDIX  A 


609 


MiakiiiK  till'  Stcc-1  C<.rp<.raii..i,  a  in<.n..p<.K  .'     'I'lu'  sl.ovviiiL'as  to  the 
I'CTcuitaKC  of  prociuction  of  all  kinds  of  siccl  in^nts  and  steel  cast- 
ings ,n  the  I  n.ted  States  hy  the  Steel  C-orporation  and  bv  all  other 
manufacturers    respectively    makes    an    even    stronger '  case      It 
makes  the  case  even  stronger  than  I  put  it  in  mv  testimony  before 
the   Investigating  Committee,  for  I   was  scrupulously  careful  to 
make  statements  that  erred,  if  at  all,  airainst  mv  own  position      It 
appears  from  the  figures  of  production  that  in  U)Oi  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration had  to  Its  credit  nearly  f)6  per  cent  of  the  total  produc- 
tion as  against  a  little  over  34  per  cent  bv  all  other  steel  manu- 
facturers      the  percentage  then   shrank  steadilv,   until  in    U)o(y 
the  year  before  the  acquisition  of  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron" 
properties,  the  percentage  was  a  little  under  5S  per  cent       In  spite 
of  the  acquisition  of  these  properties,   the  following  vear,   1907 
the  total  percentage  shrank  slightly,  and  this  shrinking  has  coii- 
iinued  until  in  ic,;o  the  total  percentage  of  the  Steel  Corporation 
IS  but  a  little  over  54  per  cent,  and  the  percentage  by  all  other  steel 
lanufacturcrs  but  a  fraction  less  than  46  per  cent.     Of  the  i;4-''- 
per   cent    produced    by    the    Steel    Corporation    i  ■'„    per  ceiit   is 
produced  b'    the  former  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company.     In 
other  words   these  figures  show  that  the  acquisition  of  the  Tennes- 
see Loal  and  Iron  Company  did  not  in  the  slightest  degree  change 
the  situation    and  that  during  the  ten  vears  which  include  the 
acquisition  of  these  properties  by  the  Steel  Corporation  the  per- 
centage of  total  output  of  steel  manufacturers  in  this  country  by  the 
Steel  Corporation  has  shrunk  from  nearly  66  per  cent  to  but  a 
triHe  oyer  54  per  cent.     I  do  not  believe  that  these  figures  can  be 
successfully  controverted,  and  if  not  successfully  controverted  they 
show  clearly  not  only  that  the  acquisition  of  the  Tennessee  Coal 
and  Iron  properties  wrought  no  change  in  the  status  of  the  Steel 
Lorporation,  but  that  the  Steel  Corporation  during  the  decade  has 
steadily  lost,  instead  of  gained,  in  monopolistic  character 

So  iiiuch  for  the  facts  in  this  particular  case.  Now  for  the 
genera  subject.  When  my  Administration  took  office,  I  found 
not  on  y  that  there  had  been  little  real  enforcement  of  the  Anti- 
1  rust  Law  and  but  little  more  effective  enforcement  of  the  Inter- 
>tate  Commerce  Law,  but  also  that  the  decisions  were  so  chaotic 
and  the  laws  themselves  so  vaguely  drawn,  or  at  least  interpreted 
in  such   widely  varying  fashions,  that  the  biggest  business  men 

meril)   kasmg  f.,r  a  term  of  M-ars  mmcral-he.irim-  !.,n<l-    I-.U'  i'  i-  <^-  *.'■"•  ,.f  ,- 
adopter"  "'  """  ''''"•''''•  ""'  "'  ""■  ^''''■'  ^""'■P"r^''""-  'hat  this  policv'ius'n.'.t  been 


6io     THF.ODORE   ROOSFAELT  -  AN   AlTOBKXiRAPHY 

tended  to  treat  both  laws  as  dead  letters.  The  series  of  actions  by 
svhich  we  succeeded  in  n.aking  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Law  an 
efficient  and  most  useful  instrument  ni  repulatmj;  the  transporta- 
Uon  of  the  country  and  exacting  justice  from  the  b.g  railways  w,th- 
out  doing  them  in  ustice  -  while,  indeed,  on  ^he  contrar>s  securmg 
them  against  injustice  -  need  not  here  be  related.  Th^  A"^'' 
TruTt  I  aw  it  was  also  necessary  to  enforce  as  it  had  never  hitherto 
been  enforced ;  both  because  it  was  on  the  statute-books  and  be- 
cause it  was  imperative  to  teach  the  masters  of  the  biggest  corpora- 
tions in  the  land  that  they  were  not,  and  would  not  be  permit  ed 
o  regard  themselves  as,  above  the  law.  Moreover  where  the 
combination  has  really  been  gulity  "f --^^f"'^^,;^^^  ''d  Oi  and 
useful  purpose,  and  in  such  cases  as  those  of  the  Standard  Oi  and 
Tobacc-o  Trusts,  if  efTectively  enforced,  the  law  confers  a  real  and 

^TuitTwere  brought  against  the  most  powerful  corporations  in  the 
land,  which  we  were  convinced  had  clearly  and  bey^ond  questujn 
violated   the  Anti-Trust   Law.     These   suits  were  brought  with 
g  eat  care,  and  only  where  we  felt   so   sure  of  our  facts  that  we 
could  be  fairlv  certain  that  there  was  a  likelihood  of  success.     A    a 
matter  of  fact,  in  most  of  the  important  suits  we  were  successful 
h  was  imperative  that  these  suits  should  be  brought,  and  very  rea 
good  was  achieved  by  bringing  them,  for  -t  was  only  these  suits 
that  made  the  great  masters  of  corporate  capital  ,n  America  M\y 
realize  that  they  were  the  servants  and  not  the  masters  of  the  peo- 
ple that  they  were  subject  to  the  law,  and  that  they  would  not  be 
permitted  to  be  a  law  unto  themselves;    and  the  corporations 
aeainst  which  we  proceeded  had  sinned,  not  merelv  by  being  big 
?which  we  did  not  regard  as  in  itself  a  sin),  but  by  being  guilty  of 
unfair   practices   towards    their   competitors,   and    by  procuring 
Unfair  Advantages   from   the  railways.     But  the  resulting  situa- 
tion   has    made    it    evident    that    the    Anti-Trust    Law    is    not 
adequate  to  meet   the   situation   that   has  grown   up  because   ot 
modern   business   conditions  and  the  accompanying  tremendous 
W^crease    in    the    business    use   of   vast   quantities   of  corporate 
wealth.     As  I  have  said,  this  was  already  evident  to  my  na md 
when  I  was  President,   and    in   communications    to   Congress    I 
"epeatedly  stated    the  facts.     But  when  I  made  these  cpmmuni- 
Sions  there  were  still  plenty  of  people  who  did  not  believe  tha 
we  would  succeed  in  the  suits  that  had  been  instituted  again 
the  Standard  Oil,  the  Tobacco,  and  other  '^"■"porations    and  it 
was  imoossible  to  get  the  public  as  a  whole  to  realize  what  the 
TituatTon  wis.     Sincere  zealots  who  believed  that  all  combinations 


APPENDIX  A 


6ii 


could  be  destroyed  and  the  old-time  conditions  of  unregulated 
competition  restored,  insincere  politicians  who  knew  better  but 
made  believe  that  they  thought  whatever  their  constituents 
wished  them  to  think,  crafty  reactionaries  who  wished  to  see  on 
the  statute-books  laws  which  they  believed  unenforceable,  and 
the  almost  solid  "Wall  Street  crowd"  or  representatives  of  "big 
business"  who  at  that  time  opposed  with  equal  violence  both 
wise  and  necessary  and  unwise  and  improper  regulation  of 
business  —  all  fought  against  the  adoption  of  a  sane,  effective, 
and  far-reaching  policy. 

It  is  a  vitally  necessary  thing  to  have  the  persons  in  control  of 
I  g  trusts  of  the  character  of  the  Standard  Oil  Trust  and  Tobacco 
'l  ust  taught  that  they  are  under  the  law,  just  as  it  was  a  necessary 
tl  ng  to  have  the  Sugar  Trust  taught  the  same  lesson  in  drastic 
fasnion  by  Mr.  Henry  L.  Stimson  when  he  was  United  States 
District  Attorney  in  the  city  of  New  York.  But  to  attempt  to 
meet  the  whole  problem  not  by  administrative  governmental 
action  but  by  a  succession  of  lawsuits  is  hopeless  from  the  stand- 
point of  working  out  a  permanently  satisfactory  solution.  More- 
over, the  results  sought  to  be  achieved  are  achieved  only  in  ex- 
tremely insufficient  and  fragmentary  measure  by  breaking  up  all 
big  corporations,  whether  they  have  behaved  well  or  ill,  into  a 
number  of  little  corporations  which  it  is  perfectly  certain  will  be 
largely,  and  perhaps  altogether,  under  the  same  control.  Such 
action  is  harsh  and  mischievous  if  the  corporation  is  guilty  of  noth- 
ing except  its  size;  and  where,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Standard  Oil, 
and  especially  the  Tobacco,  trusts,  the  corporation  has  been  guilty 
of  immoral  and  anti-social  practices,  there  is  need  for  far  more 
drastic  and  thoroughgoing  action  than  any  that  has  been  taken, 
under  the  recent  decree  of  the  Supreme  Court.  In  the  case  of  the 
Tobacco  Trust,  for  instance,  the  settlement  in  the  Circuit  Court, 
in  which  the  representatives  of  the  Government  seem  inclined  to 
concur,  practically  leaves  all  of  the  companies  still  substantially 
under  the  control  of  the  twenty-nine  original  defendants.  Such  a 
result  is  lamentable  from  the  standpoint  of  justice.  The  decision 
of  the  Circuit  Court,  if  allowed  to  stand,  means  that  the  Tobacco 
Trust  has  merely  been  obliged  to  change  its  clothes,  that  none  of 
the  real  offenders  have  received  any  real  punishment,  while,  as  the 
New  York  Times,  a  pro-trust  paper,  says,  the  tobacco  concerns, 
in  their  new  clothes,  are  in  positions  of  "ease  and  luxury,"  and 
"immune  from  prosecution  under  the  law." 

Surely,  miscarriage  of  justice  is  not  too  strung  a  tcrin  to  apply  to 
such  a  result  when  considered  in  (connection  with  what  the  Supreme 


rilKOUORK   ROOSKVKl/r  -  AN 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


61  i 

Coun  said  of  this  Trust,     'rhat  .jeat^^  ^^^/S^^^r^ 
lan^ua^rc  which,  m  sp.to  of  '^^^f 'Xsiiatingb'    condemns    the 
in   stijjmatiz.nK'   wronHo.ng    >ei   ""  ^^''^t^,^^^ 
Tobacco  Trust  for  --•  ;-P'^"^^:,f%rcious   wro^g-doing"  by 

"ever  i  .e>ent  nianifc>tatio     .  .  •^"  Yh    .  e  doinc  of  acts  which  it 
the  Tru.t,  whose  h,st,>ry.s'yeplcty^thth^do.nJ^^  ^^^^^_ 

was  the  obvious  purpose  of  '^'l''':^^^'^^^^^^  to  acquire 

strative  of  the  ex.stence    f-^^^^^^^^f/^^^^^"   by  the  mere  exertion 
dominion  and  control  of  ''^'- J^^^.f '"  J'^,  ,'   je  but  bv  methods  de- 
of  the  ordinary  nght  to  •;;''"' ^^ \ '^'Y'u'dHv^'nrco^^^^ 
vised  in  order  to  -''""H-;;^^^^^^  out  up'onTh'^  assumption 

astounding  and  horr.fymg  mdulgence  b>  the  Tru^t  m  v  .  ^ 

depraved  business  methods  -    such  as  /h*-      *:",i^^^/"'    "shutting 

ers  into  a  price  agreement  by  j-^^^  "rf,  ^^J'^sJav  be  deemed 
ization  of  the  business  ^or  such  length  of  time  as  m     ^^  ^^^^  ^^^^_ 

meet  the  "hole  sUua.ion.  I  he  h"  ■>  'l"'  "','"  crnainlv  believe 
have  called  ,hc„«elve«  l-roP'^-'r^'ir^imv  i  "  to"n.t,c  not 
"""  '""arillbrrS'  7Se"e'  „S',on'i..n  These  ,ne„ 
Kv'e  ,ha,       is  p.-ibt  'v  luen„,heni„g  ,he  An-i-'' ™«  '•«"■  •° 

£=SSSl:ee^a!E:,S£ 


APPF.NDIX   A 


613 


\Vasliiii>jti)n's  CdMtiiR'iitals  as  a  siihstiiiiU'  foi  iiHiilfrn  weapons  nf 
pri'cisioM.       riic  I'tfort   In  pioliihit   all  innihinaiioiis,  j;<mk1  or  liail, 
is  bouml  to  fail,  and  ouglii   to  fail;    v\  luii  iiiaJi',  it  iiicrt-ly  means 
that  some  of  the  worst  combinations  are  not   checked  and  that 
honest  business  is  checked.     Our  purpose  should  be,  not  to  strangle 
business  as  an  incident  of  strangling'  combinations,  but  to  regulate 
big  corporations  in  thoroughgoing  and  effective  fashion,  so  as  to 
help  legitimate  business  as  an  incident  to  thoroughly  and  com- 
pletely safeguarding  the  interests  of  the  pieople  as  a  whole.      Against 
all  such  increase  of  Clovcrnment  regulation  the  argument  is  raised 
that  it  would  amount  to  a  form  of  Socialism.     This    argument  is 
familiar;   it  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  which  was  raised  against 
the  creation  of  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission,  and  of  all 
the  different  utilities  commissions  in  the  different  States,  as  I, my- 
self saw,  thirty  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  legislator  at  Albany,  and 
these  questions  came  up  in  connection  with  our  State  Ciovernment. 
Nor  can  action  be  effectively  taken  by  any  one  State.     Congress 
alone  has  power  under  the  Constitution  effectively  and  thoroughly 
and  at  all  points  to  deal  with  inter-State  commerce,  and  where 
Congress,  as  it  should  do,  provides  laws  that  will  give  the  Nation 
full  jurisdiction  over    the  whole  field,  then    that  jurisdiction  be- 
comes, of  necessity,  exclusive  —  although  until  Congress  does  act 
affirmatively  and  thoroughly  it  is  idle  to  e.xpect  that  the  States  will 
or  ought   to  rest   content   with   non-action  on   the   part  of  both 
Federal  and  State  authorities.     'I'his  statement,  by  the  way,  applies 
also  to  the  question  of  "usurpation"  by  any  one  branch  of  our 
Ciovernment  of  the  rights  of  another  branch.     It  is  contended  that 
in  these  recent  decisions  the  Supreme  Court  legislated;    so  it  did; 
and  it  had  to;   because  Congress  had  signally  failed  to  do  its  duty 
by  legislating.    For  the  Supreme  Court  to  nullify  an  act  of  the  Legis- 
lature as  unconstitutional  except  on  the  clearest  grounds  is  usurpa- 
tion ;   to  interpret  such  an  act  in  an  obviously  wrong  sense  is  usur- 
pation ;    but  where  the  legislative  body  persistently  lea\es  open  a 
field  which  it  is  absolutely  imperative,  from  the  public  standpoint, 
to  fill,  then  no  possible  blame  attaches  to  the  official  or  officials 
who  step  in  because  they  have  to,  and  who  then  do  the  needed 
work  in  the  interest  of  the  poeple.     The  blame  in  such  cases  lies 
with   the  body  which  has  been  derelict,  and  not  with    the  body 
which  reluctantly  makes  good  the  dereliction. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Senator  Cushman  K.  Davis,  a  stales- 
man  who  aiv.ply  deserved  the  title  of  -tatcsman,  a  man  of  the  high- 
est courage,  of  the  sternest  adherence  to  the  principles  laid  down 
by  an  exacting  sense  of  duty,  an  unflinching  believer  in  democracy, 


r.i4      niKODORK   R(X)SEVKi;r-AK   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

who  was  as  little  to  be  cowed  by  a  mob  as  by  a  plutocrat,  and  more- 
over a  man  who  possessed  the  priceless  pift  of  imajjination,  a  >rift 
as  important  to  a  statesman  as  to  a  historian,  in  an  address.  J<-"- 
livered  at  the  annual  commencement  of  the  rniversity  of  Michigan 
on  Julv  I,  1886,  spoke  as  follows  of  corporations  : 

"  Feudalism,  with  its  domains,  its  untaxed  lords,  their  retainers, 
its  exemptions  and  privileges,  made  war  upon  the  aspiring  spirit  of 
humanity,  and  fell  with  all  its  grandeurs.  Its  spirit  walks  the  earth 
and  haunts  the  institutions  of  to-day,  in  the  great  corporations 
with  the  control  of  the  National  highways,  their  occupation  of 
great  domains,  their  power  to  tax,  their  cynical  contempt  for  the 
law,  their  sorcerv  to  debase  most  gifted  men  to  the  capacity  of 
splendid  slaves,  their  pollution  of  the  ermine  of  the  judge  arid  the 
robe  of  the  Senator,  their  aggregation  in  one  man  of  wealth  so 
enormous  as  to  make  Crcrsus  seem  a  pauper,  their  picked,  paid, 
and  skilled  retainers  who  are  summoned  by  the  message  of  elec- 
tricity and  appear  upon  the  wings  of  steam.  If  we  look  into  the 
origin  of  feudalism  and  of  the  modern  corporations  —  those 
Dromios  of  history  -  we  find  that  the  former  originated  m  a 
strict  paternalism,  which  is  scouted  by  modern  economists,  and 
that  the  latter  has  grown  from  an  unrestrained  freedom  of  action, 
aggression,  and  development,  which  they  commend  as  the  very 
ideal  of  political  wisdom.  Laissez-faire,  says  the  professor,  when 
it  often  means  bind  and  gag  that  the  strongest  may  work  his  will. 
It  is  a  plea  for  the  survival  of  the  fittest  —  for  the  strongest  male 
to  take  possession  of  the  herd  by  a  process  of  extermination.  If 
we  examine  this  battle  cry  of  political  polemics,  we  find  that  it  is 
based  upon  the  conception  of  the  divine  right  of  property,  and  the 
preoccupation  bv  older  or  more  favored  or  more  alert  or  richer 
men  or  nations,  of  territory,  of  the  forces  of  nature,  of  machinery, 
of  all  the  functions  of  what  we  call  civilization.  Some  of  these 
men,  who  are  really  great,  follow  these  conceptions  to  their  con- 
clusions with  dauntless  intrepidity." 

When  Senator  Davis  spoke,  few  men  of  great  power  had  the 
sympathv  and  the  vision  necessary  to  perceive  the  menace  con- 
tained in' the  growth  of  corporations  ;  and  the  men  who  did  see  the 
evil  were  struggling  blindly  to  get  rid  of  it,  not  by  frankly  meeting 
the  new  situation  with  new  methods,  but  by  insisting  upon  the 
entirely  futile  effort  to  abolish  what  modern  conditions  had  ren- 
dered absolutelv  inevitable.  Senator  Davis  was  under  no  such 
illusion.  He  realized  keenly  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  go 
back  to  an  outworn  social  status,  and  that  we  must  abandon  defi- 
nitely the  laissez-faire  theory  of  political  economy,  and  fearlessly 


APPENDIX  A 


6is 


champion  a  system  of  increased  Governmental  control,  paying  no 
heed  to  the  cries  of  the  worthy  people  who  denounce  this  as 
Socialistic.  He  saw  that,  in  order  to  meet  the  inevitable  increase 
in  the  power  of  corporations  produced  by  modern  industrial 
conditions,  it  would  be  necessary  to  increase  in  like  fashion  the 
activity  of  the  sovereign  power  which  alone  could  control  such 
corporations.  As  has  been  aptly  said,  the  only  way  to  meet  a 
billion-dollar  corporation  is  by  invoking  the  protection  of  a  hun- 
dred-billion-dollar government;  in  other  words,  of  the  National 
Government,  for  no  State  Government  is  strong  enough  both  to  do 
justice  to  corporations  and  to  exact  justice  from  them.  Said 
Senator  Davis  in  this  admirable  address,  which  should  be  re- 
printed and  distributed  broadcast : 

"  The  liberty  of  the  individual  has  been  annihilated  by  the  logical 
process  constructed  to  maintain  it.  We  have  come  to  a  political 
deification  of  .Mammon.  Laissez-faire  is  not  utterly  blameworthy. 
It  begat  modern  democracy,  and  made  the  modern  republic  possible. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  of  that.  But  there  it  reached  its  limit  of 
political  benefaction,  and  began  to  incline  toward  the  point  where 
extremes  meet.  ...  To  every  assertion  that  the  people  in  their 
collective  capacity  of  a  government  ought  to  exert  their  indefeasi- 
ble right  of  self-defense,  it  is  said  you  touch  the  sacred  rights  of 
property." 

The  Senator  then  goes  on  to  say  that  we  now  have  to  deal  with 
an  oligarchy  of  wealth,  and  that  the  Government  must  develop 
power  sufficient  enough  to  enable  it  to  do  the  task. 

Few  will  dispute  the  fact  that  the  present  situation  is  not  satis- 
factory, and  cannot  be  put  on  a  permanently  satisfactory  basis 
unless  we  put  an  end  to  the  period  of  groping  and  declare  for  a 
fixed  policy,  a  policy  which  shall  clearly  define  and  punish  wrong- 
doing, which  shall  put  a  stop  to  the  iniquities  done  in  the  name  of 
business,  but  which  shall  do  strict  equity  to  business.  We  de- 
mand that  big  business  give  the  people  a  square  deal ;  in  return 
we  must  insist  that  when  any  one  engaged  in  big  business  honestly 
endeavors  to  do  right  he  shall  himself  be  given  a  square  deal ; 
and  the  first,  and  most  elementary,  kind  of  square  deal  is  to  give 
him  in  advance  full  information  as  to  just  what  he  can,  and  what 
he  cannot,  legally  and  properly  do.  It  is  absurd,  and  much  worse 
than  absurd,  to  treat  the  deliberate  lawbreaker  as  on  an  exact  par 
with  the  man  eager  to  obey  the  lav,  whose  only  desire  is  to  find 
out  from  some  competent  Governmental  aulhorily  what  the  law 
is,  and  then  to  live  up  to  it.  Moreover,  it  is  absurd  to  treat  the 
size  of  a  corporation  as  in  itself  a  crime.     As  Judge  Hook  says  in 


6i6      IHKODORK   ROOSKX  ELT  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

his  opinion  in  ihe  Standard  Oil  Case  :  "  Magnitude  of  business  does 
not  alone  constitute  a  monopoly  ...  the  genius  and  industry  o 
man  when  kept  to  ethical  standards  still  have  full  play,  and  what 
he  achieves  is  his  .  .  .  success  and  magnitude  of  business,  the 
rewards  of  fair  and  honc^rable  endeavor  (are  not  forbidden)  .  .  . 
[the  public  welfare  is  threatened  only  when  success  is  attained) 
bv  wrongful  or  unlawful  methods."  Size  may,  and  in  my  opinion 
does,  make  a  corporation  fraught  with  potentia  menace  to  the 
communitv ;  and  mav.  and  in  my  opinion  should,  therefore  make 
it  incumbent  upon  the  community  to  exercise  through  its  adminis- 
trative (not  merelv  through  its  judicial)  officers  a  strict  superv-sion 
over  that  corporation  in  order  to  see  that  it  does  not  go  wrong; 
but  the  size  in  itself  does  not  signify  wrong-doing,  and  should  not 
be  held  to  signify  wrong-doing.  ,  .  ,    ,  •      i   •. 

Not  onlv   should   anv   huge  corporation  which  has  gained   its 
position  bv  unfair  methods,  and  by  interference  with  the  rights  ot 
others,  bv  demoralizing  and  corrupt  practices,  in  short,  by  sheer 
baseness  and  wrong-doing,  be  broken  up,  but  it  should  be  made  the 
business  of  some  administrative  governmental  body,  by  constant 
supervision,  to  see  that  it  does  not  come  together  again,  save  under 
such  strict  control  as  shall  insure  the  community  against  all  rep- 
etition of    the  bad  conduct— and  it  should  never  be  permitted 
thus  to  assemble  its  par»s  as  long  as  these  parts  are  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  original  otfendcrs.  for  actual  experience  has  shown  that 
these  men  are.  from  the  standpoint  of  the  people  at  large,  unht  to 
be  trusted  with  the  power  implied  in  the  management  of  a  large 
corporation.     But  nothing  of  importance  is  gained  by  breaking 
up  a   huge  inter-State  and   international   industrial  organization 
^chich  has  not  ojfeuded  othem-ise  than  by  its  size,  into  a  number  ot 
small  concerns  without  anv  attempt  to  regulate  the  way  in  which 
those  concerns  as  a  whole  shall  do  business.     Nothing  is  gained  by 
depriving  the  American  Nation  of  good  weapons  wherewith  to 
tiL'ht   in   the   great    tield   of  international   industrial   competition. 
•I'hose  who  would  seek  to  restore  the  days  of  unlimited  and  uncon- 
trolled competition,  and  who  believe  that  a  panacea  for  our  indus- 
trial and  economic  ills  to  is  be  found  in  the  mere  breaking  up  ot  all 
big  corporations,   simply   because  {hey    arc  big,   are   attempting 
not  onlv  the  impossible,  but  what,  if  possible,  would  be  undesirable. 
Thev  are  acting  as  we  should  act  if  we  tried  to  dam  the  Mississippi, 
to  sfon  its  flow  outriirhi.     'I'lie  effort  would  be  certain  to  re-ull  in 
failure  and  disaster;    we  uould    have  attempted    the  iiiip..sMbtc. 
and  so  would  have  achieved  nothing,  or  worse  than  nothing,      lint 
bv  buildinir  levees  along  the  Mississippi,  not  seeking  to  dam  the 


APPKNDIX  A 


617 


stream,  but  to  control  it,  \vc  are  able  to  achieve  our  object  and  to 
confer  inestimable  fjooil  in  the  course  of  so  doinp. 

This  Nation  should  definitely  adopt  the  policy  of  attacking,  not 
the  mere  fact  of  combination,  but  the  evils  and  wronp-doinjr  which 
so  frequently  accompany  combination.  The  fact  that  a  combina- 
tion is  very  big  is  ample  reason  for  exercising'  a  close  and  jealous 
supervision  over  it,  because  its  si/.e  renders  it  potent  for  mischief; 
but  it  should  not  be  pui\ished  unless  it  actually  docs  the  mischief; 
it  should  merely  be  so  supervised  and  controlled  as  to  guarantee  us, 
the  people,  against  its  doing  mischief.  We  should  not  strive  for  a 
policy  of  unregulated  competition  and  of  the  destruction  of  all  big 
corporations,  that  is,  of  all  the  most  elficient  business  industries  in 
the  land.  Nor  should  we  persevere  in  the  hopeless  experiment  of 
trying  to  regulate  these  industries  by  means  only  of  lawsuits, 
each  lasting  several  years,  and  of  uncertain  result.  We  should 
enter  upon  a  course  of  supervision,  control,  and  regulation  of  these 
great  corporations  —  a  regulation  which  we  should  not  fear,  if  neces- 
sary, to  bring  to  the  point  of  control  of  monopoly  prices,  just  as  in 
exceptional  cases  railway  rates  are  now  regulated.  Hither  the 
Bureau  of  Corporations  should  be  authf)ri/.ed.  or  some  other  govern- 
mental body  similar  to  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission 
should  be  created,  to  exercise  this  supervision,  this  authoritative 
control.  When  once  immoral  business  practices  have  been  elim- 
inated by  such  control,  competition  will  therebv-  be  again  re- 
vived as  a  healthy  factor,  although  not  as  formerly  an  all-suffi- 
cient factor,  in  keeping  the  general  business  situation  sound. 
Wherever  immoral  business  practices  still  obtain -as  they  ob- 
tained in  the  cases  of  the  Standard  Oil  'I'rust  and  Tobacco  Trust 
—  the  Anti-Trust  Law  can  be  invoked;  and  wherever  such  a 
prosecution  is  successful,  and  the  courts  declare  a  corporation  to 
possess  a  monopolistic  character,  then  that  corporation  should 
be  completely  dissolved,  and  the  parts  ou^'ht  maer  to  be  again 
assembled  save  on  whatever  terms  and  under  whatever  conditions 
may  be  imposed  by  the  governmental  body  in  which  is  ve^-ted  the 
regulatory  power.  Methods  can  readily  be  devised  by  which 
corporations  sincerely  desiring  to  act  fairly  and  honestly  can  on 
their  own  initiative  come  under  this  thoroughgoing  administra- 
tive control  by  the  (Government  and  thereby  be  free  from  the  work- 
ing of  the  Anii-Trust  Law.  liut  the  law  will  remain  to  be  invoked 
against  wiongdocrs;  and  under  such  conditions  it  could  be 
invoked  far  more  vig.ii<iu>t>   and  .successful!}'  than  at  present. 

It  is  not  necessary  in  an  article  like  this  to  attempt  to  work  our 
such  a  plan  in  detail.      It  can  assuredly  be  worked  out.     Moreover, 


6i8 


THKODORK   R(X)SE \  KLT  -  AN   ALTOBI'XIRAFIIY 


in  mv  opinion,  substantially  some  such  plan  must  be  worked  out  or 
business  chaos  will  continue.      WronKdoing  such  as  was  perpe- 
trated bv  the  Standard  Oil  'IVust.  and  especially  by  the   lobacco 
Trust    should  not  onlv  be  punished,  but  if  possible  punished  in  the 
persons  of  the  chief  authors  and    beneti  iaries  of  the  wrong,  tar 
more  severely  than  at  present.     But  pun-shment  s^hould  not  be  the 
only,  or  indeed  the  main,  end  in  yiew.     Our  aim  should  be  a  policy 
of  constructi..n  and  not  one  of  destruction.     Our  aim  should  not 
be  to  punish  the  men  who  have  made  a  bijt  corporation  successful 
merely  because  thev  haye  made  it  bij:  and  successful,  but  to  exer- 
cise such  thoroujrh>;..ini:  supervision  and  control  over  the:  i  as  to 
insure  their  business  skill  being  exercised  in  the  interest  of  the 
public  and  not  against  the  public  interest,     lltmiatelv.  1  believe 
that  this  control  should  undoubtedly  indirectly  ..r  directly  extend  to 
dealing  with  all  questions  connected  with  their  treatmetit  of  their 
employees,  includim:  the  wages,  the  hours  ..»  labor,  and  the  like. 
Not  only  is  the  proper  treatment  of  a  corporation,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  managers,  shareholders,  and  employees,  '"n>pat.b  e 
with  securing  from  that  corporation  the  best  standard  "f  P"b 'C 
service,  but  when  the  effort  is  wisely  made  it  results  m  benefit  both 
to  the  corporation  and  to  the  public.     The  success  of  W  isconsin  in 
dealing  with  the  corporations  within  her  borders    so  as  both  to 
do  them  justice  and  to  exact  justice  in  return  from  them  toward  the 
public,  has  been  signal;    and  this  Nation  should  adopt  a  progres- 
sive policy  in  substance  akin  to  the  progressive  policy  not  merely 
formulated  in  theory   but   reduced   to  actual  practice  with  such 
striking  success  in  Wisconsin. 

To  sum  up,  then.  If  is  practically  impossible,  and,  if  possble,  it 
would  be  mischievous  and  undo  .able,  to  try  to  break  up  al  com- 
binations merely  because  they  are  large  and  successful,  and  to  put 
the  business  of  the  country  back  into  the  middle  ot  the  eighteenth 
centurv  conditions  of  intense  and  unregulated  competition  between 
small  and  weak  business  concerns.  Such  an  effort  represents  not 
progrcssiveness  but  an  unintelligent  though  doubtless  entire!) 
well-meaning  torvism.  Moreover,  the  effort  to  administer  a  law 
merely  bv  lawsuits  and  .ourt  decisions  is  bound  to  end  in  signal 
failure,  and  meanwhile  to  be  attended  with  delays  and  uncer- 
tainties, and  to  put  a  premium  upon  legal  snarp  practice  buch 
an  effort  docs  not  adequately  punish  the  guilty,  and  yet  works 
-rcat  harm  to  the  innoc-ni.  Moreover,  it  entirely  fails  to  give 
Uie  publicity  which  is  one  of  the  best  by-product.s  of  the  system 
of  control  h'v  administrative  officials;  publicity,  which  is  not  only 
good  in  itself,  but  furnishes  the  data  for  .vhatever  further  action 


APFM'.NDIX  A 


619 


nia\  he  iifcc->sary.  We  lu-cii  ic  furimilati-  iinnu'Jiatcl\  aiul 
ilctinitcl)  a  polic)  uhiili,  in  <icaliii>:  witli  hi^r  corporations  that 
behave  themselves  and  which  cdntain  no  menace  "^ave  what  is 
necessarily  pcitciilial  in  an>  corporation  which  is  of  jrrcat  size  and 
verv  well  managed,  shall  aim  not  at  their  destruction  but  at  their 
re^'iilation  and  supervision,  so  that  the  (lovernment  shall  control 
them  in  such  fashion  as  amply  to  safe^ruard  the  interests  of  the 
whole  public,  including?  producers,  consumers,  and  wa^re-workers. 
This  contnji  should,  if  necessary,  be  pushed  in  .•xtreme  cases  to  the 
point  of  exercising  control  o\er  monojioly  prices,  as  rates  on  rail- 
ways are  now  controlleii ;  althou>;h  this  is  not  a  power  that  should 
be  used  when  it  is  possible  to  avoid  it.  The  law  should  be  clear, 
unambifTUous,  certain,  so  that  honest  men  ma>  not  find  that  unwit- 
tinjfly  they  have  violated  it.  In  short,  our  aim  should  be,  not  to 
destroy,  but  effectively  aiul  in  thorou^jh^'oinjr  fashion  to  re^rulate 
and  control,  i..  the  public  interest,  the  v'reat  instrumentalities  of 
modern  business,  which  it  I-  destructive  of  the  general  welfare  of 
the  community  to  destroy,  and  which  nevertheless  it  is  vitally 
nccessai\  to  that  >;eneral  welfare  to  rejiulate  and  control.  Com- 
petition will  remain  as  a  very  importa:  t  factor  when  onct  we  have 
destroyed  the  unfair  business  methods,  the  critiiinal  interference 
with  the  ri>;hts  of  others,  which  alone  enabled  certain  swollen 
combinations  to  crush  out  their  competitors  and,  incidentally, 
the  "conservatives"  will  do  well  to  remember  thai  these  unfair  and 
iniquitous  methods  by  jjreat  masters  of  corporate  capital  have 
done  more  to  cause  popular  discontent  with  the  propertied  classes 
than  all  the  orations  of  all  the  Socialist  orators  in  the  country  put 
together. 

I  have  spoken  above  of  .Senator  Davis's  admirable  address  de- 
livered a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Senator  Davis's  one-time 
partner,  Frank  B.  Kellogg,  the  (.iovernm.  n  counsel  who  did  .so 
much  to  win  success  for  the  (lovernment  in  its  prosecutions  of  the 
trusts,  has  recently  deli\i  red  before  the  Palimpsest  Club  of  Omaha 
an  excellent  address  on  the  subject ;  Mr.  Prout\-,  of  the  Inter- 
state Commerce  Comiiiision,  has  icently,  in  his  speech  before 
the  Congregational  Club  of  Mrookl  ..  dealt  with  the  subject  from 
the  constructive  side;  and  in  the  1  .occtdings  of  the  .American  Bar 
Association  for  H)0^  there  is  ar  admirable  paper  on  the  need  of 
thoroughgoing  Federal  control  over  corporations  doing  an  inter- 
state business,  by  Professor  Horace  I..  Wilgus,  of  the  University 
of  Michigan.  The  National  (iovernnu  t  exercises  control  over 
inter-State  commerce  railways,  and  it  can  in  similar  fashion, 
through  an  appropriate  governinental  bod\ ,  exercise  control  over 


620 


niKoDORK  R(H)Si:\Ki;r  -  an   .\rinBi(K;K\Piiv 


all  irulustii.il  ..r^aiii/atinns  .  ii«av;i-il  in  iiitrr-Siaif  o.mimrif. 
This  conirol  sh-.iiM  In-  ixcniscJ,  noi  by  ilu-  o.iirts.  I)ut  by  an 
aJminisf  rativo  bureau  ..r  board  such  a>  the  Bureau  ..f  Corporation-* 
or  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission;  for  the  courts  cannot 
with  advantage  permanently  perform  executive  and  admmistrative 
functions. 


Brass  Biddha. 

Presenlal  to  President  Roosevelt 
by  Dalai  Lama. 


APPENDIX   B 


THE  (l;v  'kOL  n' 


COKPOR.VnoNS 
IRKKDOM- 


AND  "THK  NKW 


'•.  t.    '• 

Wl'i   '•    '■  1 


.k    n 

'1  , 1  pi 


MA     I 

I.  n-hh 


inp:  1*1   ' 
the  It  lists 
I  am   (•' 
at  the  oat 


(.■(Join,"  ami  in  the  ina^'aziiit  articles  of 

•npearcil  just  after  he  had  been  inau- 

,  .,      ..,  VVooilrou    Wilson    made   an   entirely 

>:k  "1    .1  ti.  and  upon  the  I'ro^ressive  party  in  con- 

\.<.t  III   a..,f    ;  the  policy  of  that  party  to  be  concern- 

T!  1  i' -  re>."rds  my  attitude  while  President  about 


,1  t..    .i\     iiythinK  whatever  about  President  W  ilson 
M-  nis  A  !•   inistration  unless  1  can  speak  of  hiiTi  with 

praise.  I  nave  scrupulously  rcfraiited  from  saving  or  doing  one 
thing  since  election  that  rould  put  the  slightest  obstacle,  even  of 
misinterpretation,  in  his  path.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  the  country 
that  he  should  succeed  in  his  office.  1  cordially  wish  him  success, 
and  I  shall  cordially  support  any  policy  of  his  that  I  believe  to  be  m 
the  interests  of  the  people  of  the  Inited  States.  But  when  Mr. 
Wilson,  after  being  elected  President,  within  the  first  fortnight 
after  he  has  been  inaugurated  into  that  high  office,  permits  himself 
to  be  betrayed  into  a  public  misstatement  of  what  I  have  said, 
and  what  I  stand  for,  then  he  forces  me  to  correct  his  statements, 
Mr.  Wilson  opens  his  article  by  saying  that  the  Progressive 
"doctrine  is  that  monopoly  is  inevitable,  and  that  the  onlv  course 
i>pen  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  is  to  submit  to  it."  I  his 
statement  is  without  one  particle  of  foundation  in  fact.  I  chal- 
lenge him  to  point  out  a  sentc  e  in  the  Progressive  platform  or  in 
any  speech  of  mine  which  bear  im  out.  I  can  point  him  out  any 
number  which  flatly  contradict  him.  We  have  never  made  any 
such  statement  as  he  alleges  about  monopolies.  W^  have  sa^d : 
"The  corporation  is  an  essential  part  of  modern  business.  The 
concentration  of  modern  business,  in  some  degree,  is  both  '"^" 
itable  and  necessary  for  National  and  international  business  effi- 
ciency." Does  .Mr.  WiLson  denv  this  r  Let  him  answer  yes  orno, 
directly.     It  is  easy  for  a  politician  detected  in  a  misstatement  to 

6ai 


622     THKODORI-:   R()()SlAEi;r-AN   AlTOBlOCIRAPllY 


h 


take  rcfujjc  in  evasive  rhetorical  hyperbole.     But  Mr.  \\  ilson  is 
I'residcnl  of  the  I'niteJ  States,  and  as  such  he  is  bound  to  candid 
utterance  on  everv  subject  of  public  interest  which  he  himself  has 
broached,      if  he  disagrees  with  us,  let  him  be  frank  and  consistent, 
and  recommend  to  Congress  that  all  corporations  be  made  illegal. 
Mr.  Wilson's  whole  attack  is  largely  based  on  a  deft  but  far  from 
ingenuous  confounding  of  what  we  have  said  of  monopoly,  which 
we  propose  so  far  as  possible  to  abolish,  and  what  wc  have  said  of 
bii;  corporations,  which  we  propose  to  regulate;  Mr.  W  ilson's  owii 
vaguely  set  forth  proposals  being  to  attempt  the  destruction  of 
both  in  wav>  that  would  harm  neither.      In  our  platform  we  use 
the  word  "monopoly"  but  once,  ami  then  we  speak  of  il  as  an 
abuse  of  power,  coupling  il  with  stock-watering,  unfair  competition 
and  unfair  privileges.     Does  Mr.  Wilson  deny  this.'     If  he  docs, 
then  where  else  will  he  assert  that  we  speak  of  monf)poly  as  he  says 
we  do.'     He  certainly  owes   the  people  of  the  I  nited  States  a 
plain  answer  to  the  question.      In  my  speech  of  acceptance  I  said  : 
"We  favor  strengthening  the  Sherman  Law  by  prohibiting  agree- 
ments to  divide  territor\  or  limit  output;    refusing  to  sell  to  cus- 
tomers who  buv  from  business  rivals;   to  sell  below  cost  in  certain 
areas  while  maintaining  higher  prices  in  other  places;    using  the 
power  of  transportation  to  aid  or  injure  special  business  concerns; 
and  all  other  unfair  trade  practices."     The  platform  pledges  us  to 
"guard  and  keep  open  equally  to  all,  the  highways  of  .\merican 
commerce."     'Phis    is   the   exact    negation   of  monopoly.     I'nless 
Mr.  Wilson  is  prepared  to  show  the  contrary,  surely  he  is  bound  in 
honor  to  admit  frankly  that  he  has  been  betrayed  into  a  misrepre- 
sentation, and  to  correct  it. 

.\Ir.  Wilson  savs  thai  for  si.\teen  years  the  National  .\dministra- 
tion  has  "been  virtually  under  the  regulation  of  the  trusts,"  and 
that  the  big  business  men  "have  already  captured  the  (Govern- 
ment." Such  a  statement  as  this  might  perhaps  be  pardoiied  as 
mere  rhetoric  in  a  candidate  seeking  office  —  although  it  is  the 
kind  of  statement  that  never  under  any  circumstances  have  I 
permitted  myself  to  make,  whether  on  the  stump  or  off  the  stump, 
about  anv  opponent,  unless  !  was  prepared  to  back  it  up  with 
explicit  facts.  But  there  is  an  added  seriousness  to  the  charge 
when  it  is  made  deliberately  and  in  cold  blood  by  a  man  who  is  at 
the  time  Pre-ident.  In  this  volume  I  have  set  forth  my  relations 
with  the  trusts.  I  challenge  Mr.  Wilson  to  controvert  anything 
I  have  said.  <>r  to  name  any  trusts  or  any  big  business  men  \v:lio  reg- 
ulated, or  in  anv  shape  or  way  controlled,  or  captured,  the  Govcrn- 
ment  during  my  term  as  President.     He  must  furnish  specifications 


APPKXDIX   H 


''23 


if  his  words  arc  taken  at  their  face  value  aiul  I  venture  to  say  in 
advance  that  the  absurdity  of  such  a  charjre  is  [lateiil  tn  all  inv 
fellow-citizens,  not  excepting:  Mr.  Wilson. 

Mr.  Wilson  says  that  the  new  party  was  founded  '"under  the 
leadership  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  with  the  conspicuous  aid  —  I  mention 
him  with  no  satirical  intention,  but  merely  to  set  the  facts  down 
accurately  -of  Mr.  (]eorjre  W.  Perkins,' orjjanizer  of  the  Steel 
Trust."  Whether  Mr.  Wilson's  intention  was  satirical  or  not  is  of 
no  concern;  but  1  call  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  has  con- 
spicuously and  strikinjrly  failed  "to  set  the  facts  d(jwn  accurately." 
Mr.  Perkins  was  not  the  organizer  of  the  Steel  Trust,  and  when  it 
was  organized  he  had  no  connection  with  it  or  with  the  Morgan 
people.  This  is  well  known,  and  it  has  ajrain  and  again  been 
testified  to  before  Conjrressional  committees  controlled  by  Mr. 
W  ilson's  friends  who  were  endeavoring  to  tind  out  something 
against  Mr.  Perkins.  If  Mr.  Wilson  does  not  know  that  my  state- 
ment is  correct,  he  ought  to  know  it,  and  he  is  not  to  be  e.xcused 
for  making  such  a  misstatement  as  he  has  made  when  he  has  not  a 
particle  of  evidence  in  support  of  it.  Mr.  Perkins  was  from  the 
beginning  in  the  Harvester  Trust  but,  when  Mr.  Wilson  points 
out  this  fact,  why  does  he  not  add  that  he  was  the  only  man  in  that 
trust  who  supported  me,  and  that  the  President  of  the  trust  ar- 
dently supported  .Mr.  Wilson  himself  ':  It  isdisingenuoustoendeavor 
to  conceal  these  facts,  and  to  mislead  ordinary  citizens  about  them. 
Under  the  administrations  of  both  Mr.  Taft  and  Mr.  \\  ilson,  Mr. 
Perkins  has  been  singled  out  for  special  attack,  obviously  not 
because  he  belonged  to  the  Harvester  and  Steel  Trusts,  but  because 
he  alone  among  the  prominent  men  of  the  two  corporations  fear- 
lessly supported  the  only  party  which  atTorded  any  real  hope  of 
checking  the  evil  of  the  trusts. 

Mr.  Wilson  states  that  the  Progressi\es  have  "a  programme  per- 
fectly agreeable  to  monopolies." 

The  plain  and  unmistakable  inference  tf)  be  drawn  from  this  and 
other  similar  statements  in  his  article,  and  the  inference  which  he 
obviously  desired  to  have  drawn,  is  that  the  big  corporations  ap- 
proved the  Progressive  plan  and  supported  the  Progressive  can- 
didate. If  President  Wilson  does  not  know  perfecth'  well  that  this 
is  not  the  case,  he  is  the  onl\-  intelliirent  person  in  the  I'nited 
States  who  is  thus  ignorant.  Everybody  knows  that  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  heads  of  the  big  corporations  supported 
him  or  Mr.  Taft.  It  is  equally  well  known  that  of  the  corporations 
he  mentions,  the  Steel  and  the  Harvester  Tru.-Is,  there  was  but 
one  man  who  took  any  part  in  the  Progressi\e  campaign,  and  that 


11  l' 


624     THKODORK   ROOSE\  EKl"  -  AN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

almost  all  the  utiie.s,  mmuc  thirty  i.i  nuinlu-r  were  against  u.  ami 
some  of  them,  including-  the  President  ..f  the  Harves  or  I  rns  . 
opTnh  and  enthusiasticallv  for  Mr.  Wilson  h.n.sd  If  he  reads 
the  newspapers  at  all,  he  must  know  that  pract.cally  every  ma.j 
tepresentLJ  the  great  financial  i"-'-f  ."Vb^^vTs^r^et'or 
without  exception  every  newspaper  -i""»^'>''^f^^>  ^);  "!' J'^h.  ved 
Stale  Street,  actively  supported  either  him  or  Mr.  1  aft,  and  showed 
n-rfict  willingness  w  accept  either  if  only  the>  could  prevent  the 
i>riressWe  Ifartv  from  coming  into  power  and  from  putting  its 

'^'Mn  W^^^f^'f  the  trust  plank  in  that  platfc.rm  that  it  ''did 
not  anvwhere  condemn  monopoly  except  '"^^'''^V.,    •';"""  a  u 
what  else  could  a  platform  consist  ?     Does  Mr.  V-  ■'""  ;'^PJ^\^\'J 
to  use  alircbraic  signs?     This  criticism  is  much  .     if  he  said  tUc 
Con  titut'ion  or  the'oeclaration  of  Iiulependence  contained  nothing 
but  words      The  Progressive  platform  did  contain  words,  and  the 
word"  were  admirabl?  designed  to  express  -l-"f  >' .^.^  --/^-f^ 
and  purpose.     Mr.  Wilson  savs  that  1  long  ago    ca.sihed  trusts  lor 
us  as'".od  and  bad,"  and  said  that    !  was  -afra.d  on  v  o    the  bad 
ones."     Mr.  Wilson  would  do  well  to  quote  exacth   what  m>  Ian 
guage  was.  and  where  it  was  used.  f..r  I  am  at  a  loss  ,0  l<"o-  «h^ 
statement  of  mine  it  is  to  which  he  refers.      But  if  he  means  tha    I 
V  th^t  corporations  can  dc.  well,  and  that  corporations  can  aUo 
do  ill.  he  is  stating  my  position  correctly.      I  ^''^'^  ,,y   '      bv 
tion  does  ill  if  it  seeks  profit  in  restrating  product...  1  and     un 
extortinir  hiirh  prices  from  the  community  by  reason  of  the  scarcit> 
o    the  P  oduct ;   tl.nui.h  adulterating,  1>  .ngly  advertising,  or  over- 
driv  n«  the  help;   or  replacing  men  workers  with  children;   or  b> 
rebates ;  or  in  iny  illegil  or  improper  manner  ^ln-"t;-'2S    ^r 
out  of    itswav;    or   seeking  to  achieve    mon<.poi>     b>    illegal    or 
unethical  treatment  of  its  competitors,  or  m  any  shape  or  wa 
"Sending  against    the   moral   law   either   ui   -'--^^^l^^^^^ 
public  or  with  its  employees  or  with   its  rivals.     .\n>      '  H-    aUo" 
which  seeks  its  profit  in  such  fashion  is  acting  badh        it  is,  in  tact 
a     inspiracv   against   the   public   welfare   wh,ch   the     ;'>;™" 
should  use  all  its  powers  to  suppress.      If,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
corpora  In  seeks  profit  soldv  by  increasing  its  products  .hrough 
Sinating  waste,  improving  its  processes,  u.ih.mg  us  b> -l-.dua- 
installing  better  machines,  raising  wages  m  the  effort  to  ^ecurt  n  ore 
efficientltelp.  introducing  the  principle  of  cooperation  and  mutual 
benefit,  dealing  fairly  with  laboruni..nsset,u.g  its  fac.  against    h 
underpayment  of  women  and  the  employment  otchildrui .    m  a 
w"rd?treatlng  the  public  fairly  and  its  rivals  fairly  :  then  such  a 


APPENDIX   B 


625 


corporation  is  behaving  well.  It  is  an  instrumentality  of  civiliza- 
tion operating  to  promote  abundance  by  cheapening  the  cost  of 
living  so  as  to  improve  conditions  everywhere  throughout  the 
whole  community.  Does  Mr.  Wilson  controvert  either  of  these 
statements  .'  If  so,  let  him  answer  directly.  It  is  a  matter  of 
capital  importance  to  the  country  that  his  position  in  this  respect 
be  stated  directly,  not  by  indirect  suggestion. 

Much  of  Mr.  Wilson's  article,  although  apparently  aimed  at  the 
Progressive  party,  is  both  so  rhetorical  and  so  vague  as  to  need  no 
answer.  He  does,  however,  specifically  assert  (among  other  things 
equally  without  warrant  in  fact)  that  the  Progressive  party  says 
that  it  is  "futile  to  undertake  to  prevent  monopoly,"  and  only 
ventures  to  ask  the  trusts  to  be  "kind"  and  "pitiful"  !  It  is  a 
little  difficult  to  answer  a  misrepresentation  of  the  facts  so  radical 
—  not  to  say  preposterous  —  with  the  respect  that  one  desires  to 
use  in  speaking  of  or  to  the  President  of  the  United  States.  I 
challenge  President  Wilson  to  point  to  one  sentence  of  our  platform 
or  of  my  speeches  which  affords  the  faintest  justification  for  these 
assertions.  Having  made  this  statement  in  the  course  of  an  un- 
provoked attack  on  me,  he  cannot  refuse  to  show  that  it  is  true.  I 
deem  it  necessary  to  emphasize  here  (but  with  perfect  respect) 
that  I  am  asking  for  a  plain  statement  of  fact,  not  for  a  display  of 
rhetoric.  I  ask  him,  as  is  my  right  under  the  circumstances,  to 
quote  the  exact  language  which  justifies  him  in  attributing  these 
views  to  us.  If  he  cannot  do  this,  then  a  frank  acknowledgment 
on  his  part  is  due  to  himself  and  to  the  people.  I  quote  from  the 
Progressive  platform  :  "  Behind  the  ostensible  Government  sits 
enthroned  an  invisible  Government,  owing  no  allegiance  and  ac- 
knowledging no  responsibility  to  the  people.  To  destroy  this 
invisible  Government,  to  dissolve  the  unholy  alliance  between 
corrupt  business  and  corrupt  politics,  is  the  first  task  of  the  states- 
manship of  the  day.  .  .  .  This  country  belongs  to  the  people. 
Its  resources,  its  business,  its  laws,  its  institutions,  should  be 
utilized,  maintained,  or  altered  in  whatever  manner  will  best 
promote  the  general  interest."  This  assertion  is  explicit.  We  say 
directly  that  "the  people"  are  absolutely  to  control  in  any  way 
they  see  fit,  the  "business"  of  the  country.  I  again  challenge  Mr. 
Wilson  to  quote  any  words  of  the  platform  that  justify  the  state- 
ments he  has  made'to  the  contrary.  If  he  cannot  do  it  —  and  of 
course  he  cannot  do  it,  and  he  -..ust  know  that  he  cannot  do  it  — 
surely  he  will  not  hesitate  to  say  so  frankly. 

Mr.   Wilson  must   know  that  every  monnpoh    in  the  l  nited 
States  opposes  the  Progressive  party.     If  he  challenges  this  state- 
is 


r,2f.      THEODORE   ROOSE\  ELT  —  AN   ALTOBIOCJRAPH  V 


mcnt,  I  chaHciipc  him  in  return  us  is  clcarh-  my  right)  to  name  the 
monopoly  ihal  did  support  the  Pro^jri'ssivc  jiarty,  whether  it  was 
the  Sugar  Trust,  the  SteelTrust,  the  Harvester  Trust,  the  Standanl 
Oil  Trust,  the  'i'obacco  'IVust,  or  any  other.  Every  sane  man  in 
the  ciiuntry  knows  well  that  there  is  not  one  word  of  justitication 
that  can  truthfull)  be  adduced  for  Mr.  Wilson's  statement  that 
the  Progressive  programme  was  agreeable  to  the  monopolies.  Ours 
was  the  only  programme  to  which  they  objected,  and  they  sup- 
ported cither  .\Ir.  Wilson  or  .Mr.  'I'aft  against  me,  indifferent  as  to 
which  of  them  might  be  elected  so  long  as  I  was  defeated.  Mr. 
Wilson  says  that  1  got  ni}  "idea  with  regard  to  the  regulation  of 
mon(jpoly  from  the  gentlemen  who  form  the  I'liited  States  Steel 
Corporation."  Does  Mr.  Wilson  pretend  that  .Mr.  \'an  Hise  and 
Mr.  Croly  got  their  ideas  from  the  Steel  Corporation  .'  Is  .Mr. 
Wilson  unaware  of  the  elementary  fact  that  most  modern  econo- 
mists believe  that  unlimited,  unregulated  competition  is  the  .source 
of  evils  which  all  men  now  concede  must  be  remedied  if  this 
civilization  of  ours  is  to  survive  .'  Ts  he  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
the  Socialist  partv  has  lonu'  been  against  unlimited  competition  .' 
'This  statement  of  Mr.  Wilson  cannot  be  characterized  properly 
with  any  degree  of  regard  for  the  otRce  Mr.  Wilson  holds.  Why, 
the  ideas  that  i  have  championed  as  to  controlling  and  regulating 
both  competition  and  combination  in  the  interest  of  the  people,  so 
that  the  people  shall  be  masters  over  both,  have  been  in  the  air  in 
this  country  for  a  tjuarter  of  a  century.  I  was  merely  the  first 
prominent  candidate  for  I'resident  who  took  them  up.  'They  are 
the  progressive  ideas,  and  progressive  business  men  must  in  the 
end  come  to  them,  for  I  firmly  believe  that  in  the  end  all  wise  and 
honest  business  men,  big  and  little,  will  support  our  programme. 
Mr.  Wilson  in  opposiiii:  them  's  the  mere  apostle  of  reaction.  He 
says  that  1  got  my  "ideas  from  the  gentlemen  who  form  the 
Steel  Corporation."  I  did  not.  But  1  will  point  out  to  him  some- 
thing in  return.  It  was  he  himself,  and  .\lr.  'Taft,  who  got  the 
votes  and  the  money  of  these  same  gentlemen,  and  of  those  in  the 
Harvester  'I'rust. 

Mr.  Wilsfin  has  promised  to  break  u]'  all  trusts.  He  can  do  so 
only  by  proceeding  at  law.  If  he  proceeds  at  law,  he  can  hope 
for  success  only  by  taking  what  I  ha\e  done  as  a  pre  edent.  In 
fact,  what  1  ditl  as  President  is  the  base  of  every  action  now  taken 
or  thai  can  be  now  taken  looking  toward  the  control  of  corporations, 
or  the  suppression  of  monopolies.  The  decisions  rendered  in 
\arioUs  cases  brought  by  m\  direction  constitute  the  authority  on 
which   .\lr.   Wilson  must   ba^c  an\    action   that  he    may  bring    to 


APPENDIX  B 


627 


curb  monopolistic  control.  Will  Mr.  Wilson  deny  this,  or  ques- 
tion it  in  any  way  ?  With  what  grace  can  he  describe  my  Admin- 
istration as  satisfactory  to  the  trusts  when  he  knows  that  he  can- 
not redeem  a  single  promise  that  he  has  made  to  war  upon  the 
trusts  unless  he  avails  himself  of  weapons  of  which  the  Federal 
Government  had  been  deprived  before  I  became  President,  and 
which  were  restored  to  it  during  my  Administi  *ion  and  through 
proceedings  which  I  directed  ?  Without  my  action  Mr.  Wilson 
could  not  now  undertake  or  carry  on  a  single  suit  against  a  monop- 
oly, and,  moreover,  if  it  had  not  been  for  my  action  and  for  the 
judicial  decision  in  consequence  obtained,  Congress  would  be 
helpless  to  pass  a  single  law  against  monopoly. 

Let  Mr.  Wilson  mark  that  the  men  who  organized  and  directed 
the  Northern  Securities  Company  were  also  the  controlling  forces 
in  the  very  Steel  Corporation  which  Mr.  Wilson  makes  believe  to 
think  was  supporting  me.  I  challenge  Mr.  Wilson  to  deny  this, 
and  yet  he  well  knew  that  it  was  my  successful  suit  against  the 
Northern  Securities  Company  which  first  efficiently  established 
the  power  of  the  people  over  the  trusts. 

After  reading  Mr.  Wilson's  book,  I  am  still  entirely  in  the  dark 
as  to  what  he  means  by  the  "New  Freedom."  Mr.  Wilson  is  an 
accomplished  and  scholarly  man,  a  master  of  rhetoric,  and  the 
sentences  in  the  book  are  well-phrased  statements,  usually  incul- 
cating a  morality  which  is  sound  although  vague  and  ill  defined. 
There  are  certain  proposals  (already  long  set  forth  and  practiced 
by  me  and  by  others  who  have  recently  formed  the  Progressive 
party)  made  by  .Mr.  Wilson  with  which  I  cordially  agree.  There 
are,  however,  certain  things  he  has  said,  even  as  regards  matters 
of  abstract  morality,  with  which  I  emphatically  disagree.  For 
example,  in  arguing  for  proper  business  publicity,  as  to  which  I 
cordially  agree  with  Mr.  Wilson,  he  commits  himself  to  the  follow- 
ing statement : 

"Vou  know  there  is  temptation  in  loneliness  and  secrecy. 
Haven't  you  experienced  it  .'  I  have.  We  are  never  so  proper  in 
our  conduct  as  when  everybody  can  look  and  see  exactK  what  we 
are  doing.  If  you  are  off  in  some  distant  part  of  the  world  and  sup- 
pose that  nobody  who  lives  within  a  mile  of  youi  home  is  any- 
where around,  there  are  times  when  you  adjourn  your  ordinary 
standards.  You  say  to  yourself,  'Well,  I'll  have  a  fling  this  time; 
nobody  will  know  anything  about  it.'  If  you  were  on  the  Desert 
of  Sahara,  you  would  feel  that  you  might  permit  yourself  well, 
say,  .some  slight  latitude  of  conduct ;  but  if  you  saw  one  of  your 
immediate  neighbors  coming  the  other  way  on  a  camel,  you  would 


628     THEODORE   ROOSEVELT -AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

behave  yourself  until  he  got  out  of  sight.  The  most  dangerous 
thing  in'the  world  is  to  get  off  where  nobody  knows  you.  1  advise 
ynu  to  stav  around  among  the  neighbors,  and  then  you  may  keep 
out  of  jail.'     That  is  the  only  way  some  of  us  can  keep  out  of  jail. 

1  cmphaticallv  disagree  with  what  seems  to  be  the  morality  in- 
culcated in  this'statcmcnt,  which  is  that  a  man  is  expected  to  do 
and  is  to  be  pardoned  for  doing  all  kinds  of  immoral  things  if  he 
does  them  alone  and  does  not  expect  to  be  found  out.  Surely  it 
is  not  necessary,  in  insisting  upon  proper  publicity,  to  preach  a 
moralitv  of  so  baselv  material  a  character. 

There  is  much  more  that  Mr.  Wilson  says  as  to  which  I  do  not 
understand  him  clearly,  and  where  I  condemn  what  I  do  understand. 
In  economic  matters  the  course  he  advocates  as  part  of  the     New 
Freedom"  simplv  means  the  old,  old  "freedom"  of  leaving  the 
individual  strong  man  at  libertv,  unchecked  by  common  action,  to 
prev  on  the  weak  and  the  helpless.     The  "New  Freedom     in  the 
abstract  seems  to  be  the  freedom  of  the  big  to  devour  the  little. 
In  the  concrete  I  may  add  that  Mr.  Wilson's  misrepresentations  of 
what  I  have  said  seem  to  indicate  that  he  regards  the  new  freedom 
as  freedom  from  all  obligation  to  obey  the  Ninth  Commandment. 
But,  after  all,  my  views  or  the  principles  of  the  Progressive  party 
arc  of  much  less  importance  now  than  the  purposes  of  Mr.  Wilson. 
These    are    wrapped    in    impenetrable    mystery.     His    speeches 
and  writings  serve  but  to  make  them  more  obsctjre.     If  these 
attempts  to  refute  his   misrepresentation  of  my  attitude  towards 
the  trusts  should  result  in  making  his  own  clear,  then  this  discus- 
sion will  have  borne  fruits  of  substantial  value  to  the  country.     If 
Mr.  Wilson  has  anv  plan  of  his  own  for  dealing  with  the  trusts, 
it  is  to  suppress  all  great  industrial  organizations  —  presumably 
on  the  principle  proclaimed  by  his  Secretary  of  State  four  years 
ago,  that  evcrv  corporation  which  produced  more  than  a  certain 
percentage  of  a  given  commodity  —  I  think  the  amount  specified 
was  twenty-five  per  cent  —  no  matter  how  valuable  its  service, 
should   be  suppressed.     The  simple  fact   is  that   such  a   plan   is 
futile.     In  operation   it  would  do  far   more  damage   than  it  could 
remedy.     The  Progressive  plan  would  give  the  people  full  control 
of,  and  in  masterful  fashion  prevent  all  wrongdoing  by,  the  trusts, 
while  utilizing  for  the  public  welfare  every  industrial  energy  and 
ability  that  operates  to  swell  abundance,  while  obeying  strictly  the 
moral  law  and  the  law  of  the  land.     .Mr.  Wilson's  plan  would 
ultimately   benefit   the   trusts   and    would    permanently    damage 
nobody  but  the  people.     For  example,  one  of  the  steel  corporations 
which  has  been  guilty  of  the  worst  practices  towards  its  employees 


APPENDIX  B 


6a9 


is  the  Colorado  Fuel  and  Iron  Company.  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr. 
Bryan's  plan  would,  if  successful,  merely  mean  permitting  four 
such  companies,  absolutely  uncontrolled,  to  monopolize  every 
big  industry  in  the  country.  To  talk  of  such  an  accomplish- 
ment as  being  "The  New  Freedom"  is  enough  to  make  the  term 
one  of  contemptuous  derision. 

President  Wilson  has  made  explicit  promises,  and  the  Demo- 
cratic platform  has  made  explicit  promises.  Mr.  Wilson  is  now  in 
power,  with  a  Democratic  Congress  in  both  branches.  He  and  the 
Democratic  platform  have  promised  to  destroy  the  trusts,  to 
reduce  the  cost  of  living,  and  at  the  same  to  increase  the  well- 
being  of  the  farmer  and  of  the  workingman  —  which  of  course  must 
mean  to  increase  the  profits  of  the  farmer  and  the  wages  of  the 
workingman.  He  and  his  party  won  the  election  on  this  promise. 
We  have  a  right  to  expect  that  they  will  keep  it.  If  Mr.  Wilson's 
promises  mean  anything  except  the  very  emptiest  words,  he  is 
pledged  to  accomplish  the  beneficent  purposes  he  avows  by  break- 
mg  up  all  the  trusts  and  combinations  and  corporations  so  as  to 
restore  competition  precisely  as  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  If  he  does 
not  mean  this,  he  means  nothing.  He  cannot  do  anything  else 
under  penalty  of  showing  that  his  promise  and  his  performance  do 
not  square  with  each  other. 

Mr.  Wilson  says  that  "the  trusts  are  our  masters  now,  but  I  for 
one  do  not  care  to  live  in  a  country  called  free  even  under  kind 
masters."  Good  !  The  Progressives  are  opposed  to  having  mas- 
ters, kind  or  unkind,  and  they  do  not  believe  that  a  "new  free- 
dom" which  in  practice  would  mean  leaving  four  Fuel  and  Iron 
Companies  free  to  do  what  they  like  in  every  industry  would  be  of 
much  benefit  to  the  country.  The  Progressives  have  a  clear  and 
definite  programme  by  which  the  people  would  be  the  masters  of 
the  trusts  instead  of  the  trusts  being  their  masters,  as  Mr.  Wilson 
says  they  are.  With  practical  unanimity  the  trusts  supported  the 
opponents  of  this  programme,  Mr.  Taft  and  Mr.  Wilson,  and  they 
evidently  dreaded  our  programme  infinitely  more  than  anything 
that  Mr.  Wilson  threatened.  The  people  have  accepted  Mr. 
Wilson's  assurances.  Now  lot  him  make  his  promises  good.  He 
is  committed,  if  his  words  mean  anything,  to  the  promise  to  break 
up  every  trust,  every  big  corporation  —  perhaps  every  small 
corporation  —  in  the  Ignited  Slates  —  not  to  go  thrf)Ugh  the  mo- 
tions of  breaking  them  up,  but  really  to  break  them  up.  He  is 
committed  against  the  policy  (of  efficient  control  and  mastery  of 
the  big  corporations  both  by  law  and  by  administrative  action  in 
cooperation)  proposed  by  the  Progressives.     Let   him  keep  faith 


630    THEODORE    ROOSE\ELT-AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

...h  the  people  no.  hi„,  in  .™dfaUh.;y;o,k^^^^^^^^^ 

js  President.     It  i!>  his  acis  in-i  -i  promu  :,  and 

honor  to  the  people  of  the  J  "'^'^^^^^if^^^^'^  bi^^^^^^  all  trusts, 

to  break  up,  not  nominally  but  in  reality,  »"  ^'?    .         ^  probably 

he  had  to  do  was  to  speak,  not  to  act. 


APPENDIX  C 


THE    BI.AINK  CAMPAIGN 

In  "The  House  of  Harper,"  written  by  J.  Henry  Ha/per,  t'  e 
foUowinj;  passajje  occurs:  "Curtis  returned  from  the  convention 
in  company  with  voun^;  'Iheodore  Roosevelt  and  they  discussed 
the  situatiim  thormiiihly  on  their  trip  to  New  York  and  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  consistently  sup- 
port Blaine.  Roosevelt,  however,  had  a  conference  afterward 
with  Senator  Lod^re  and  eventually  fell  in  line  behind  Blaine. 
Curtis  came  to  our  office  and  found  that  wc  were  unanimously 
opposed  to  the  support  of  Blaine,  and  with  a  heart\-  >;ood-will  he 
trained  his  editorial  jtuns  on  the  '  Tiumed  Kni^hl'  of  .\iullijran 
letter  fame.  His  work  was  as  effective  and  deadly  as  any  tight  he 
ever  conducted  in  the  ir.ykly."  'I'his  statement  has  no  founda- 
tion whatever  in  fact.  1  did  noi  return  from  the  convention  in 
companv  with  Mr.  Curtis.  He  wnnt  back  to  New  York  from  the 
convention,  whereas  I  went  to  my  ranch  in  North  Dakota.  No 
such  conversation  as  that  ever  took  place  between  me  and  .Mr. 
Curtis.  In  mv  presence,  in  speaking  to  a  number  of  men  at  the 
time  in  Chicago,  Mr.  Curtis  said  :  "  You  ycmnger  men  can,  if  you 
think  right,  refuse  to  support  Mr.  Blaine,  but  I  ;im  too  old  a 
Republican,  and  have  too  long  been  associated  with  the  party,  to 
break  with  it  now."  Not  only  did  I  never  entertain  after  the 
convention,  but  I  never  during  the  convention  or  at  any  other 
time,  entertained  the  intention  alleged  in  the  quotation  in  ques- 
tion. 1  discussed  the  whole  situation  with  Mr.  Lodge  before  goimr 
to  the  convention,  and  we  had  made  up  our  minds  that  if  the 
nomination  of  Mr.  Blaine  was  fairly  made  we  would  with  equal 
good  faith  support  him. 


6.H 


I 
'I, 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Lyman,  J75. 

Abcrnathy,  John,  54. 

Addamt,  Jane,  180. 

Africa,  hunting  in,  40-41. 

Ahlwardt,  Rector,  anti-Semitic  preacher. 

205-206. 
Alaska,  enactment  of  game  laws  for,  460. 
Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  reading  of  books  by, 

20. 
Aldermen,  depriving  of  confirming  power, 

in  New  York  City,  92. 
Aldrich,  Senator,  382,  475' 
Alger,   Russell   A.,  2}8,   240.   244.   247; 

letter  from,  relating  to  round  robin 

incident,  278-279. 
Allison   amendment    to    Hepburn    Bill, 

475-476.  , 

American  Tobacco  Company   suit,  ^tg. 
Ames,  General,  267.  268. 
Anarchists,  treatment  due,  5J2. 
Animal  pets  of  author's  children,  369- 

372-  „    ,        , 

Animals,  seen  in  Yellowstone  Park,  34ft; 

measures    taken    by    author    while 

President  to  protect,  459-460. 

Annapolis  Naval  Academy,  227. 

Anthracite  coal  strike,  504-5 18. 

Anthracite  Strike  Commission,  506-510, 

S>3-5>6- 

Antin,  Mary,  180. 

Appalachian  National  Forest,  436. 

Architecture,  improvement  in,  in  Wash- 
ington, 459- 

Armaments   as   insurance   against   war, 

223-224.  575-58"-  .      . 

Armenian  massacres,  lesson  to  be  drawn 

from,  577. 


Army,  condition  of  American,  «t  open- 
ing of  Spanish  War,  237.  242-245! 
shortcomings  of  training  in,  foi 
actual  war,  250-251;  lessons  learned 
by,  from  Spanish  War,  276. 

Army  officers,  physical  tests  for,  54-55- 

Asiatic  laborers  in  California,  treatment 
of  question  of,  41 1 -41 4- 

Assembly,  election  of  author  to  the,  70- 
71;  experiences  in  the,  71-101. 

.\ustcn,  Jane,  novels  of,  364. 

Australia,  visit  of  American  fleet  to,  598. 

B 

Bacon,  Robert,  52,  388,  448,  508. 
Bailey,  Liberty  H.,  451. 
Baird,  Spencer,  publications  of,  22. 
Ballads,  author's  fondness  for,  363. 
Ballantyne,  R.  M.,  stories  by,  20. 
Ballinger  case,  396-397- 
Banks,  Lewis  .\.,  487. 
Barber,  Captain  H.  A.,  letter  by,  288- 
289. 

Bardshar,  H.  P..  letter  by,  287-288. 

Barrett,  C.S,  451. 

Barry,  General  T.  H.,  52,  546. 

Bates,  General,  268. 

Battle  fleet,  cruise  of,  around  the  world, 
592-605. 

Battle-ships,  building  of  our  new,  226- 
227;  color  of,  602. 

Bear-hunters'  dinner.  White  House,  347. 

Bcde,  Congressman.  443. 

Bell,  General,  54. 

Bell,  taxidermist,  22. 

Belmont,  August,  35. 

Bevcridge.  Senator,  384. 

Bicycle  police.  New  York,  201-203. 


633 


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634 


INDEX 


Big  business,  alliance  of  New  York 
Republican  machine  and,  under 
Piatt  rule,  297-303;  opposition  of, 
to  author's  candidacy  in  1904,  421- 
422;  National  control  of,  462-477, 
483-500,  606  ff. 

Big-game  hunting,  40-42. 

Big-game  library.  Sagamore  Hill,  360. 

"Big  stick,"  use  of,  in  connection  with 
control  of  corporations,  462-477 

Big  trees  of  California,  347- 

Billy  the  Kid,  New  Mexico  desperado, 

Bird  Reservations,  National,  establish- 
ment of,  461. 
Birds,  early  study  of,  23 ;  at  Sagamore 
Hill,  345.  353-355;  '"  Mrt'inia,  345- 
346;  in  Yellowstone  Park,  346-347; 
in  the  Yosemite,  347-349;  '"  •'"•"?- 
land,  349-353- 
Bishop,  Joseph  B.,  340:    "The  Panama 

Gateway,"  by,  574. 
Black,  Frank,  294,  295- 
Blackbirds  in  Kngland,  350-35>- 
Blackcap  warblers,  352. 
Black  horse  cavalry.  New  York  Legis- 
lature, 7S. 
Blackmailing    bills.    New    York    Legis- 
lature, 77  ff. 
Blaine,  James  (!.,  96. 
Boating,  views  on,  46-47' 
Books,  author's,  as  a   boy,   17,   18-19; 
for  children,  19-20,  375-376;    grati- 
fication of  love  of,   342;    collection 
of,    at    Sagamore    Hill,    359  ff;    '«" 
statesmen's    reading,    361-362;     re- 
marks on  lists  of  best  books,  362. 
Bonaparte,  Attorney-CJencral,  469,  478. 
480,  481,  483;    letter  to,  on  actions 
of  trusts  and  corporations,  491-5OO. 
Bordeaux,  Henry,  writings  of.  180. 
Boss,  distinction  between  a  leader  and  a, 

164-167. 
Boss  rule  in  New  York  State,  296-303. 
m^ghton.  Captain,  265. 
Bourkc,  I-.dward  J.,  211-213. 
Boxing,  lessons  in,  33 ;  'at"  experiences 


as    a    first-class    sport. 


in,    47-48; 
48-49. 
Brace,  Charles  Loring,  13. 
Brady,  Governor  of  Alaska,  13. 
Briesen,  .Arthur  von,  70. 
Bristow,    Joseph    L.,    investigation    of 
Post-Office  Department  by,  403-404. 
Brodie,  Major,  257,  259. 
Bronzes  at  Sagamore  Hill,  356,  357. 
Brooks,  John  Graham,  "American  Syn 

dicalism"  by,  541. 
Brownson,  .\dmiral,  230. 
Bryan,  William  J.,  293.  297- 
Brycc,  James,  anecdote  incorporated  in 
".American  Commonwealth"  by,  98; 
a  Westerner  at  dinner  with,  13^-133  ; 
letter  from,  on  author's  resignation 
of    Police    Commissionership,    222; 
tribute  by,  to  the  men  who  worked 
with  author  while  President,  386. 
Buchanan,  James,  395. 
Buchanan-Taft  theory     of    Presidential 

office,  395-397- 
Buck  fever,  38,  39. 
Buddha,  statue  of,  presented  by  Dalai 

Lama,  358. 
Buffalo,  the  .\frican,  40;    measures  for 

preservation  of  .American,  460. 
Bull-fighting,  boxing  contrasted  with,  49. 
Bulloch,  .Anna,  15. 
Bulloch,  Archibald,  4. 
Bulloch,  Irvine,  1;. 
Bulloch,  James  Dunwoodie,  15,  16. 
Bulloch,  Martha,  mother  of  author,  14. 
Bullock,   Seth,   52,   54,    140.   377;    firft 
meeting   and    later   close    friendship 
with,  130-131. 
Bunau  X'arilla,  Philippe,  566. 
Burloy,  John  W.,  negro  criminal,  407. 
Burns.  William  J.,  405. 
Burroughs,  John,   127,   345.   34^;    with 
the    author    in    Yellowstone    Park, 

346-347- 
Burton,  Senator,  406. 
Business,  combination  between  politics 

and,  S4-S6. 
Butterfield,  Kcnyon,  452. 


INDEX 


635 


Calahan  saloon  affair,  212-213. 
California,   visit   to,    347-349;    trouble 

relative  to  Japanese  in,  411-417- 
Canals,  action  in  regard  to  New  York, 

308-3 10. 
Cannon,  Joseph,  382. 
Capital  punishment,  views  on,  269-270. 
Capron,  AUyn,  269. 
Carter,  "Modesty,"  122. 
Cartoon,  "His  Favorite  Author,"  424, 

425- 
Chaffee,  General,  243,  256,  260. 
Chapin,  Alfred  C,  7S-76,  85. 
Chapman,  Frank,  28. 
Chestnut  trees.  Sagamore  Hill,  354. 
Chicago  Convention  of  191 2,  106,  120. 
Chidwick,  Father,  naval  chaplain,  49. 
Child  Labor  Committee,  National,  502. 
Children,    the   bearing    and   rearing   of, 
176  ff.;  pleasure  to  be  found  in,  364- 
365 ;   anecdotes  of  the  author's,  365- 
374;  education  and  reading  of,  375- 
376. 
Children's  books,  19-20,  375-376- 
Chimney  Butte  ranch.  103,  104  ff. 
China,     fatuousness     of     disarmament 

illustrated  bv,  419.  .';7*'- 
Cigar-Makers'  Union  bill  in  New  York 

Assembly,  88-90. 
Civil  Service  Commission,  efficiency  of. 
as  conducted  by  Garfield,  Mcllhenny, 
and  similar  men,  401. 
Civil     Service     Commissioner,    author's 

work  as,  144  ff. 
Civil    Service    Reform,    discussion    of, 

144-149. 
Clark,  E.  F..,  508,  509- 
Clark,  Inter-State    Commerce  Commis- 
sioner, 477. 
Clark,  Senator  from  Arkansas,  384,  55 «• 
Class  war,  524. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  82,  89,  507;    letter 
from,  during  coal  strike  of  1902,  513. 
Coal  lands,  withdrawal  of,  393.  444.  4;«- 
Coal  miners'  strike,  504-518. 


Cockrell,  Senator,  150,  384. 

Coinage,  new  designs  in,  459- 

Colombia,  behavior  of,  relative  to 
Panama  Canal,  553-57°;  "xt  of 
proposed  message  to  Congress  con- 
cerning, 572-573  ;  case  of  Venezuela 
contrasted  with  that  of,  573- 

Colton,  administration  of  Santo  Domin- 
gan  customs  by,  546. 

Comer,  Cornelia,  "Preliminaries"  by, 
180. 

Commerce  and  Lrbor,  Department  of, 

471. 

Commerce  Court,  the,  477. 

Commission,  Anthracite  Coal  Strike, 
506-510,  513-516- 

Commissioners,  creation  of  volunteer 
unpaid,  399-402;  abandonment  of, 
by  President  Taft,  402. 

Cone,  Captain,  597. 

Conser\'ation  of  natural  resources, 
measures  looking  to,  in  New  York 
State,  313,  337-339;  national,  428- 
461 ;  outgrowth  of  movement  from 
the  forest  movement,  444;  con- 
ferences of  Governors  and  of  nations 

on,  445.  447-448- 
Constant,    M.    d'Estournelles    de,    581, 

588. 

Cooley,  Alford,  310,  326,  39>- 

Cooper,  Congressman,  384. 

Corporations,  regulation  of,  321-328, 
462-477,  483-500,  606  ff. ;  control  of 
and  President  Wilson's  "New  Free- 
dom," 621-630. 

Corporations,  Bureau  of.  work  of,  456- 
459,  471. 

Corruption,  in  New  York  Legislature, 
77  ff. ;  in  New  York  police  depart- 
ment, 193;  in  Federal  Post-Office 
Department,  403-405;  in  the  Land 
Office,  405-40<). 

Cortelyou,  Secretarj',  471.  A^S- 

Costello,  Michael,  73,  80-81. 

Costigan,  Tammany  politician,  157-158- 

Couear,  bronze,  gift  from  the  Tennis 
Cabinet,  54,  357- 


636 


INDEX 


Country  Life,  Ojmmisaion  on,  402,  452- 
456. 

Courts,  doubtful  decisions  by,  89-90; 
tendency  of,  to  protect  those  least 
in  need  of  protection,  503 ;  mis- 
carriage of  justice  in,  611. 

Cousins,  the  sixteen,  364. 

Cove  School,  0>'ster  Bay,  17,  373-374; 

Cowboys,  life  among  the,  103  if. ;  in 
Rough  Rider  regiment,  133,  136-141, 
248-249. 

Cowles,  Captain,  230,  356. 

Crater  Lake  Park,  Oregon,  460. 

Crime,  decrease  in,  in  New  York  City, 
during  author's  regime  as  Police 
Commissioner,  194. 

Criminals,  public  attitude  toward.  142- 
143;  pardoning  of,  328-331,  487  ff. 

Croker,  Richard,  209,  296. 

Croly,  Herbert,  "Promise  of  American 
Life"  by,  30;  cited,  86. 

Cuba,  distressing  conditions  in,  before 
Spanish  War,  227-228;  fighting  in, 
256-291 ;  honorable  policy  followed 
concerning,  after  Spanish  War,  545  - 
546. 

Cunningham,  newspaper  man,  99. 

Curran,  Father,  509-510. 

Curtis,  General,  Assemblyman,  73. 

Cutler,  Arthur,  26,  27. 


Daniels,  Ben,  52. 

D&rgan,  Congressman,  150. 

Davis,  Arthur  P.,  432. 

Davis,  Cushman  K.,  150;  letter  from, 
quoted,  228  n. ;  address  on  corpora- 
tions by,  613-615. 

Davis,  Richard  Harding,  in  Cuba  with 
the  Rough  Riders,  257,  270. 

Debates  and  debating-societies,  lack  of 
sympathy  with,  28. 

Debs,  Eugene,  528,  529. 

Demagogues  and  demagogy,  99-101. 

Denison,  Assistant  Dislrict-Alloriiey, 
406,  486. 


Denison,  of  Japanese  Foreign  Office,  599. 

Department  Methods,  Commission  on, 
399-400. 

Desperadoes,  experiences  with  Western, 
135-136;  adventures  of  New  York 
police  with,  197-200. 

Devery,  William  F.,  334,  335. 

Dewey,  Admiral,  230-231,  233;  Auto- 
biography of,  quoted,  233-234. 

Dime  novels,  reading  of,  19. 

Diplomatic  service  of  United  States,  388. 

Disarmament,  fallacies  of,  419,  57^578. 

District  of  Columbia,  regulation  of 
shooting  in  the,  460. 

Dixon,  Senator,  384. 

Dodge,  Cleveland  H.,  192. 

DoUiver,  Senator,  384,  475,  476. 

Donovan,  Mike,  50. 

Dow,  William,  36,  87;  at  the  Elkhorn 
ranch,  106,  108. 

Doyle,  Father,  330-33 •• 

Dutch  ancestors  of  author,  1-2. 


Earle,  Edwin,  486. 

Economic  conditions,  duty  of  the  Gov- 
ernment concerning,  174-175. 

Editors,  newspaper,  criticism  of,  162- 
163;  in  the  pay  of  Wall  Street  in- 
terests, 491-494.     See  Newspapers. 

Edmunds,  George  F.,  96. 

Education  of  author's  children,  375. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  2. 

Egan,  Ambassador,  388. 

Egypt,  boyhood  study  of  ornithology  in, 
23. 

Eight-hour  law,  501,  502. 

El  Caney,  fight  at,  262. 

Elephant  hunting,  40. 

Elkhorn  ranch,  103,  106  tf. 

Elsberg.  Nathaniel,  310. 

Emerson,   Ralph  Waldo,   in   California, 

347- 
England,  friendly  attitude  of,  in  Spanish 
War,  237;  a  day  among  the  birds  of, 
349-353- 


INDEX 


637 


European  trips,  17,  23-26. 

Kvans,    Admiral    Robley    D.,  2?0,   356, 

595- 
Evening  Post,  New  ^'ork,  on  llic  Rough 

Riders,  249  n. 
Examinations,    competitive,     for    Civil 

Service  positions,  159-161. 
Executive,  view  of   the,   as    peculiarly 

representative   of    the   people   as   a 

whose,  306. 
Executive    power,    author's    broadening 

of  use  of,  as  President,  388-397. 
Exercise,  a  necessity  for  men  in  sedentary 

pursuits,  46-47;   forms  of,  taken  by 

author,  47-54;  in  walking  and  riding, 

prescribed  for  army  officers,  54-55 ; 

desirability  of,  for  all  city-dwellers, 

S7-59- 

F 

Fearlessness,  acquisition  of  quality  of, 
59-60. 

Ferris,  Joseph  A.,  104,  127. 

Ferris,  Sylvanus  M.,  104,  1 17,  1 18,  119, 
131. 

Fine  .Arts  Council,  459. 

Fire  prevention  work  of  Forest  Service, 
440. 

Fish,  Hamilton,  391. 

Fitzsimmons,  Bob,  50,  193. 

Fleet,  world  voyage  of,  592-605. 

Flowers  at  Sagamore  Hill,  343,  345. 

Foreign  affairs,  conduct  of,  during  Presi- 
dency of  author,  41",  419. 

Foreign  policy,  in  case  of  Santo  Domingo, 
548-552 ;  settlement  of  trouble  be- 
tween Venezuela  and  Germany,  552- 
553 ;  concerning  Colombia  and  the 
Panama  Canal,  553-574- 

Forest  Congress,  First  National,  437. 

Forest  preservation  in  New  York  State, 

313.  3377339- 
Forests,  national  conservation  of,  428  if., 

435-437.  439  ff- 
Forest  Service,  educational  work  of  the, 
436-437;  placing  of  National  Forests 
under    care    of,    437;     strength    of 


hostility  to,  439-440;    water-policy 

established  by,  442-443. 
Fortnightly    Revinv,    quoted    concerning 

men  who  worked  with  author  while 

President,  386,  388. 
Fox,  lawyer,  309. 
France,  gift  to  author  from,  after  peace 

of  Portsmouth,  587-588. 
Franchise  taxation  in  New  York  State, 

321  ff. 
Frankfurter,   Assistant     District-Attor- 
ney, 406,  486. 
Frauds  in  public  lands,  405-406. 
Free  silver  platform,  Bryan's,  297. 
Frick,  H.  C,  478,  479,  480,  481,  608. 
Fulton,  Senator,  391-393,  440. 


Gallantry  among  New  York  police, 
recognition  of,  194-204. 

Game  laws,  enactment  of,  460. 

Garfield,  James  R.,  52,  401,  448,  471, 
490,  606-607;  able  administration 
of  Interior  Department  by,  451. 

Garrett,  Patrick,  132. 

Gary,  E.  H.,  478,  479,  480,  481,  607,  608. 

Gerbracht,  Ernest  W.,  486-487. 

Germany,  boyhood  days  in,  25-26;  aid 
of,  in  negotiations  looking  to  settle- 
ment of  Russo-Japanese  War,  587. 

Gladstone,  James  Bulloch's  views  con- 
cerning, 16. 

Goddard,  F.  Norton,  339. 

Godkin,  E.  L-,  221-222. 

Goethals,  Colonel  G-  \V.,  571. 

Goff,  John,  46,  127. 

Goldfield  mining  difficulties,  408-411. 

Gompers,  Samuel,  521. 

Goodrich,  David,  266,  269. 

Gorgas,  Dr.,  571. 

Gorman,  Senator,  153-154. 

Governors,  conference  of,  at  White 
House,  445. 

Governorship  of  New  York,  election  to 
and  activities  during,  293-339. 

Grand  Canon  Game  Preserve,  460. 


638 


INDEX 


Gray,  Judge  George,  comment  on 
author's  action  during  coal  strike, 
;i6  n. 

Grecnway,  Jack,  2(>^.  269,  27 J. 

Grizzly  bear,  hunting  the,  40,  4'-4-- 

(ircy,  Sir  Kdward,  349- 

Grosvcnor.  Congressman,  li;2. 

Guasimas.  battle  of,  25'>-26l. 


H 


Hague  conference  on  conservation,  pro- 
posed, 448. 

Hague  Court,  carrying  of  cases  betore 
the.  553,  581-582. 

Hale,  Senator,  3S2,  402.  454. 

Half-brccd  faction  of  Republican  party, 

76,9;-  .  ,    .      .        r 

Hamilton,    Alexander,    admiration    lor, 

Hampton  Roads,  arrival  of  battle  tleet 

at,  after  world  cruise,  602-605. 
Hanna,  Mark,  169-170,  332,  333' 
Harriman    railway    corporations,    suits 

against  the,  483. 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  347. 
Harvard,  life  at,  27-3 «• 
Havcmevcr,  Henry  O.,  486. 
Havcmeyer    &    F.lder    Sugar    Refinery 

frauds,  485-487. 
Hawkins,  General,  243. 
Hay,    John,    letters    from,     296,    420; 
cordial     relations     with,     419420; 
mentioned.  563  ;    quoted  on  author's 
action  in  the  Panama  matter.   569. 
Hayes,  Johnny,  58. 
Hav-Herran 'Ireaty.  554.  fj^i- 
Hay-Pauncefole  Treaty.  553.  S^t- 
Haywood.  409,  528  ff. 
Hazel,  Judge,  294. 

Hcike,  Charles  R.,  486,  4«7;   commuta- 
tion of  sentence  of.  487-489. 
Heney,  Francis,  ^91,  405-406,  448. 
Hepburn,  Congressman.  369-370,  384. 
Hepburn  R.ite  Bill.  474-47^- 
Herrig,  Fred,  l3&->37- 
Hess,  Jake,  64,  67-68. 


Heyer,  New  York  policeman,  201. 
Hill,  David  B.,  76,  209,  212,  302,  3^7- 
Hill,  Professor  A.  S.,  27- 
"History  of  the  Naval  War  of    1812, 

27,  224. 
Hitchcock,    Secretary    of    the    Interior, 

436,  44S- 
Hitt,  Representative.  384. 
••  Homes  Without  Hands,"  Wood's,  21. 
Hook,  Judge,  quoted,  616. 
Hooker,  F.lon,  309.  3io- 
Hornadav,  W.  T.,  28. 
Horseback-riding,    34-35;     »»    physical 

test  for  officers,  54-55- 
Hough,  Judge,  391. 
Howe,  Walter,  73. 
Howze,    Lieutenant     Robert    L.,    264, 

270;   letters  by,  282-283. 
Hubbard,  Commander,  564. 
Hughes,  Governor,  301.  320. 
Humphrey,  Captain,  563. 
Hunt,  Isaac,  73. 
Hunt,  Jap,  124-125. 
Hunting  experiences,  38-46. 
Hutch,  Li<  itenant-Commander,  597. 


Indians,  difficulties  with,  in  the  West, 
123-126;  incident  of  Senator  Quay 
and,  171-172;  safeguarding  welfare 
of  the,  394. 

Indian  timberlands,  proper  handling  ol, 

440-441. 
Individualism,  limitations  to,  175-170- 
Industrial     conditions.     Governmental 

oversight  of,  i74-«75- 
Inland  Waterways,  Commission  on,  401, 

444 ;  trip  of.  down  Mississippi  River, 

445- 
Insurance  business,  correction  of  evils  in, 

3 '8-320. 

Internal  affairs,  author's  scheme  of  ad- 
ministration of,  while  President, 
420-421.  .    . 

Inter-State  Commerce  Commission, 
strengthening  of,  by  Hepburn  Rate 


INDEX 


639 


al 

I, 

•r, 

n, 

d- 
n, 

m, 
lie 


Act.  474 '477;  mutuil  obligations  of 

corporations  and,  477. 
Italian,   translation  of  "'I'lti'   Strenuous 

Life"  into,  |;S. 
Itclicn,  birds  in  valley  of  tlic,  350. 

J 

Jackson-l.incoln  tlu-ory  of  the  Presi- 
dency, .V)4-3f>7-  S04- 

jaines  River  Dam  I5ill,  veto  of,  457. 

Japan,  friendliness  of,  in  Spanish  War. 
237;  feeling  in,  on  settlement  of 
Russo-Japanese  War,  5K6;  reception 
given  American  fleet   in,  598-^101. 

Japanese,  translation  of  "The  Strenuous 
Life"  into,  5S. 

Japanese  in  California,  difficulties  over, 
411-417. 

Jenkins,  M.  J.,  letter  by,  2H(y-2i^7. 

Jew-baiting  preacher,  story  of  the,  205- 
iOf). 

Jiu-jitsu,  4S. 

Joint  Conservation  Conference.  447-44H. 

Jones,  Sheriff  Bill,  1.27   130.  131. 

Jusserand,  Ambassador,  anecdote  con- 
cerning, 52. 

K 

Keep,  Charles  H.,  3<)9-40O. 

Kellogg,  Frank  H.,  40(),  619. 

Kcllor.  Frances.  iHo. 

Kelly.  Luther,  5;,  54. 

Kelly,  Peter,  73-76. 

Kent,  Cieneral,  26H. 

Kettle  Hill,  the  fight  at,  2;S,  28;,  284, 

287,  290,  291. 
Knight   Company   case,    4r/>-4()7,    468, 

4f)9,  4(>o. 
Knox,  .\ttorney-Cieneral.  468. 
Kohrs,  Conrad.  122. 
Kruse,  Assemblyman  and  judge,  73. 

L 

Labor,  work  in  the  interests  of,  301-540. 
Labor-saving  machinery,  worker's  right 
to  share  in  profits  of,  525-526. 


Labor  unions,  attitude  toward,  221,  512, 

518-523- 
La  Follette,  quoted  on  author's  services 

as   {'resident,  426-427. 
Lambert,   Or.   .Mexander,   376. 
Land   fraud   prosecutions,   405-406. 
Lane,      Intcr-Statc     Commerce     Com- 
missioner, 477. 
Larks,  observations  of,  in  F'.ngland,  351- 

352- 

Law,  study  of  and  remarks  on,  61-62. 

I.awton,  (leneral,  243,  260. 

Lee,  Arthur.  216,  270. 

Leonard,  Captain,  55. 

Leupp,  Francis  F..  394. 

Lewi,  Dr.  Maurice,  207. 

Lion  hunting,  39-40. 

Littledale,  St.  George,  52. 

Little  Missouri,  life  on  the,   IO3-136. 

Llewellyn,  Major,  137. 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  150,  551;  efforts 
of,  in  securing  author's  appoint- 
ment as  .\ssistant  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  224;  fearlessness  of,  in  up- 
holding national  honor  and  interest, 
230;  ccxiperation  of,  with  author, 
before  Spanish  \\  ^.  233;  close  rela- 
tions with,  upon  author's  becoming 
President,  383-384. 

Loeb,  William,  Jr.,  319,  379,  484,  485, 
486,  589. 

Long,  John,  boxing-master,  33. 

Lorimer,  Senator,  167. 

Louisville  and  Nashville  R.  R.  trouble, 

537-539- 
Low,  Seth,  587. 
Ludlow,  General,  268. 

M 

McBee,  Silas,  340. 

McCall,  John  A.,  318,  320. 

McCullagh,  John,  Chief  of  New  York 

State  Bureau  of  Flections,  334,  335. 
McCullough,  John,  police  inspector,  206. 
MacFarlane,  Federal  District  .Attorney, 

309- 


640 


INDEX 


McGce,  W  J.  42S-429- 
Mcllhennv,  John.  401. 
McKinlcy,  William,  150.  i(*},  224.  54<'i 

death  of,  379. 
Machine,  the  Republican,  in  New  ^  ork 

State,  297-30*- 

Machines,  distinction  between  organiza- 
tions and,  164-167. 

Mahan,  Captain,  writings  of,  226. 

Maine,  blowinp-up  of  tlic,  232. 

Maine  woods,  camping  and  hunting  in 

the,  35-36.  t      ,A      •,«■ 

Marksmanship,     degrees     ot,     3".     3». 

training  of  New  York  police  m,  I9» ; 

in  the  navy,  232-233. 
Maroquin,  J.  NJ-.  Colombian  dictator, 

559-560,561-563-  .,.,Si. 

Marriage,    remarks    on,    62,     I7»-"'4. 

advantage  of  early,  216. 
Marryat,  books  by,  20;    a  lesson  from, 

60. 
Marshall,  body-servant,  261 . 
Marshall,  Vice-President,  reported  state- 
ment   of,    concerning    author    and 
battle  of  San  Juan  Hill,  280.^ 
"Marxism      versus      Socialism,"      Sim- 

khovitch's,  54'-S42- 
Maxwell,  G.  H.,  428- 
Mayoralty  campaign  (1S86),  144. 
Meat  inspection  law,  483. 
Merriam,  Hart,  28,  29. 
Merrifield,  William  J.,  106,  117.  "8.  >27- 
Mesa  Verde  National  Park,  460. 
Meyer,  George  von  L.,  587,   106,   118, 

119,  120,  388. 
Miles,  General,  253. 
Miller,  printer,  case  of,  521,  523. 
Millet,  Frank,  459- 
Mills,  Lieutenant  A.  1..,  261,  263.  270; 

letter  by,  284. 
Minckwitz.  family,   Dresden,   25-26. 
Mineral  land  laws,  449. 
Mines,  Bureau  of,  502. 
Mississippi  River,  trip  of  Inland  Water- 
ways Commission  down  the.  445- 
Mitchell,  John,  506,  507,  587. 
Mitchell,  Senator,  448. 


Mondcll,  Congressman,  395.  43 •• 
Monroe  Doctrine,  author's  interpre- 
tation of  the,  546-547:  application 
of,  in  cases  of  Venezuela,  Santo 
Domingo,  and  Colombia  and 
Panama,  547-S7>- 
Montauk  Point,  return  of  Cuban  army 

Moody,    Attorney-General,    469,    476, 

483.  490.  503- 
Moosehead  Lake,  trip  to,  33. 
Morgan,  John,  228. 
Morley,  John,  536. 

Morse,  banker,  case  of,  406,  407,  487' 
Morton,  Captain,  265. 
Morton,    Paul,   473-474- 
Moiton    Hall,    political    meeting-place, 

63-64-  .         , 

Mosquito  Inlet  Reservation,  46I. 
Mounted  police.  New  York,  201. 
Mount  Olympus  National  Monument, 

460. 
Moyer,  409,  528  S. 
"Mr.  Dooley,"  cited,  234- 
Muir,  John,  visit  to  the  Yosemite  with, 

347-349- 
Muir  Woods,  .^60. 
Murdock,  Congressman,  384. 
Murphy,  Lieutenant,  563. 
Murray,  Joseph,  64-70,  161. 
Murray,  Lawrence,  41 1 - 


N 
National  Association  of  Manufacturers, 

532-533-  .  . 

National  Bird  Reservations,  461. 
National   Bison  Range,  Montana,  461- 
Naiional  Child  Labor  Committee,  502. 
National  Conservation,  Commission  on, 

402,445.447-  ,.    ,  ,     , 

National  Guard  of  New  York,  authors 

service  in,  250. 
National    Guard    training,    advantages 

and  shortcomings  of,  250-251. 
National  Monuments  Act,  460. 
National  Parks,  creation  of,  '/o. 


INDEX 


641 


Navy,  appointment  of  author  to  Assist- 
ant Secretaryship  of,  224 ;  beginnings 
of  our  new,  226;  condition  of,  be- 
fore opening  of  Spanish  War,  226- 
227;  preparation  of,  for  the  war, 
230-235;  lessons  learned  by,  from 
the  war,  276 ;  benefits  to,  from  world 
cruise  of  flee     592. 

Neill,  Charles  P.,  411,  502.  S09- 

Nelson,  Battling,  $0. 

Nevada,  checking  of  anarchy  in,  408- 
411. 

Newbold,  Thomas,  73. 

Newell,  Frederick,  H.,  313,  428,  429, 
43'.  434  J  single-minded  devotion  of, 
to  work  of  reclamation,  432. 

New  Forest,  visit  to  the,  350. 

"New  Freedom,"  Woodrow  Wilson's, 
462,  621-630. 

Newlands,  Senator  Francis  G.,  428. 

Newsboys'  Lodging-Houses,  13. 

Newspaper  correspondents,  help  of, 
at  Albany,  99;  tribute  to  qualities 
and  services  of,  at  Washington,  385. 

Newspapers,  criticism  of  attitude  of 
certain,  162-163;  deprecation  of 
Spanish  War  by,  228;  hostility  of, 
to  author  in  campaign  of  1904,  422 ; 
support  given  to  corporations  by, 
464,  491-494;  attacks  by,  due  to 
author's  action  in  Anthracite  Strike, 
518;  attack  by,  following  speech 
condemning  anarchistic  labor  leaders 
and  capitalists  alike,  527-528;  de- 
nunciation by,  owing  to  course  in 
Santo  Domingan  trouble,  550-552; 
attitude  toward  world  cruise  of 
battle  fleet,  597-598- 

New  York  City,  boyhood  homes  in, 
6,  7,  12;  Police  Commissionership 
of,  185;  prevention  of  election 
frauds  in,  in  1900,  333-336- 

Niedicke,  Paul,  52. 

Nile,  bird-collecting  on  the,  23. 

Nobel  Peace  Prize,  587. 

Norris.  Kathleen.  "Mother"  by,  180, 
183. 


North  American  Conservation  Confer- 
ence, 447-448- 

Northern  Securities  Company  case,  467- 
469,  470,  490. 


Odell,  B.  B.,  294,  390,  391- 
Office-holders,  use   of,    to  debauch   po- 
litical conventions,  146. 
Officers,   riding  and  walking  tests  for, 

54-57- 
Oklahoma,  protection  of  Indian  rights 

and  property  in,  394. 
O'Neil,  Bucky,  269. 
O'NeiU,  William,  71-73,  87. 
Oregon  land  fraud  cases,  405,  448. 
Organization  of  Government  Scientific 

Work,  Commission  on,  399. 
Ornithological  studies,  23-24. 
Ouida,  "Under  Two  Flags"  by,  19. 
Our  Young  Folks,  20,  30. 
0>ster    Bay,    residence    at,    26.    See 

Sagamore  Hill. 


Packing-house  inspection,  483. 

Palestine,  bird-collecting  in,  23. 

Palisade  Park  Commission,  321. 

Panama,  Republic  of,  recognition  of, 
by  United  States,  565-566. 

Panama  Canal,  history  of  period  pre- 
liminary to  building,  553-57°;  de- 
cision of  kind  of  canal  and  work  of 
building,  570-57I- 

Panama  Canal  tolls,  a  matter  for  arbi- 
tration, 582. 

Panama  Canal  Zone,  acquisition  of, 
517;  history  of  steps  leading  to 
acquisition  of,  553  if. 

"Panama  Gateway,"  Bishop's,  574. 

Panama  revolution,  564-566. 

Panic  of  1907,  477-478.  517- 

Pardoning  of  criminals,  328-331,  487  ff. 

Parker,  Alton  B.,  293,  422- 

Parker,  Lieutenant,  270. 


2T 


64: 


INDEX 


fU. 


Parr,  Richard,  484-4R6. 

I'artrid^i-.  Colonel,  30),  110- 

IVacc-at-any-pricc  pcoplo,  remarks  on, 
iij,  tl.,  23J.  zy''-  ^7.i-i**'- 

Pilican  Island  rookery,  4^)1- 

Perkins,  Cleorpe  W..  tirM  mcctm«  «^.tl.. 
,,H-3l.);  service  on  Palisade  lark 
Commission,   y.i;    mentioned,   50«. 

Pettibone,  40),  siX- 
Pettv,  New  >ork  police  sergeant.  19«. 
Phi   Beta   Kappa  Society,   Harvard,  Jt*. 
Philadelphia  Convention  of   l<)00.  33' 

333- 

Philippine  policy,  5+3-54.V 

Pinchot,  Cnfford,  ji.  3'3-  4i«.  43".  435. 
437.  440.  44«.  45^.  4<;o:  volunteer 
commissions  sun^estea  h>  •  40- , 
invaluable  work  of.  as  head  of  I'or- 
estrv  Bureau,  4^9;  chairman  of 
Nat'ional  Conservation  Commission, 

+47- 

Pinnacles  National  Monument,  4«>. 

Pi,„,l  practice  by  New  York  police,  19H. 

Piatt,  Orville  H.,  IjO,  3**4- 

Piatt,  T.  P.,  i<«.  294.  295.  i'X>;  P'«'- 
tion  of,  as  a  boss,  29^-30:;  c'lar- 
acter  of  opposition  to,  302  3^3; 
examples  of  the  rule  of,  3°;  "■: 
custom  of  breakfasting  with  3>i- 
312;  struiri-'le  with,  over  othcc  ot 
Superintendent  of  Insurance,  314- 
317;  clash  with,  on  franchise  taxa- 
tion, 321-32H;  succeeds  in  nominat- 
ing author  for  the  \ice-Presidency. 

Plan  Naiional  Park    Oklahoma,  4(0. 

Plunkctt,  Sir  Horace,  452. 

Poetrv,  rcadinp  of,  2 1 . 

Police  Commissioner,  service  as,  iH;  tt. 

Police  lodKing-tioiisfs.  abolition  of,  2 1 8. 

Politics,  should  not  be  one's  sole  career, 
62;  author's  early  experiences  in, 
6-'-70;  improvement  in,  76;  ex- 
periences in  practical,  in  New  York 
Legislature,  76-101. 

Polo-playing,  46. 


Portsmouth,  peace  of,  5«5-5'"5,  588. 

Post,  Reginald,  310.  326. 

Powell,  Major  John  Wesley,  4«- 

I'rairie  tires,  120-122. 

Presldencv,  accession  of  author  to  tlie, 
379;  ■  Jackson-Lincoln  theory  of, 
vs  Buchanan-Taft  theory,  394-397. 
504;  views  as  to  three  terms  in  the. 

422-425- 
Price,  Overton  W.,  400,  44«- 

Prize-fighting,  4H-5I- 

Proctor,  John  R.,  144- 

Proctor,  Senator,  services  of,  m  sccur- 

imr  Dewev's  appointment,  231-232. 
Progiessive     Conventiim     at     Chicago 

(!<>12),  106,  120. 
Progressive  doctrine,  the,  (>21-<>30. 
Prostitution,  police  work  dealing  with, 

215  ff.  ,, 

Prouty,     Interstate     Commerce     Com- 
missioner, 477.  ^'9- 

Pryor,  Dr.  John  H.,  313- 

Public  land  policy.  44«-45'- 

Public    Lands    Commission,    40«.    44»- 

449- 
Pure  KcxkI  and  Drugs  Act,  483. 

Putnam,  Rufus  P.,  152- 


Quaker  strain  in  Roosevelt  ancestry,  I. 

Quav,  Matthew  S.,  pleasant  relations 
of  author  while  President  with,  170- 
172;  action  of,  at  time  of  Anthracite 
Strike,  515. 

Quigg.  L.  E.,  294-296- 


Race,  question  of  perpetuation  of  the, 

176  ff. 
Races,    inadvisability    of   mixing,   4"- 

412,  4U-4'5- 

Radclyffe,  Captain,  52. 
Railways,  regulation  of,  473-477- 
Raines,  John,  327- 
Rainey,  Father,  naval  chaplain,  49- 


INDEX 


643 


Ranch  life,  lOj-143. 

Raphael,  Otto,  192-193. 

Rcadintf,  as  a  boy,    17,   19-11;    choice 

of   books    for,    3S<r-364;     ranije    of, 

for  autlior's  children,  375~37<'-     ■S" 

Books. 
Rebates,  railway,  473-474- 
Reclamation,  work  of,  429  IT. 
Reclamation  .Act.    428,    431,  432,  434, 

448. 
Reed,  T.  B.,  quoted,   167;    mention  d, 

294- 
Reformers  of  "silk  stocking"  type,  96- 

97- 

Reid,  .\Iaync,  17,  19,  20. 

Reid,  New  York  policeman,  199. 

Remington,  Frederic,  103,  133;  "Bronco 
Buster"  by,  given  to  author,  356. 

Republican  Administration,  office-hold- 
ers used  by,  to  debauch  political 
convention  of  1912,  146. 

Republican  party,  position  of,  in  1898, 
297-298;  in  New  York  State,  298- 
303 ;  at  time  of  author's  succession 
to  Presidency,   381-3S2. 

Revolution  of  Panam.i  against  Colombia, 
564-566. 

Revolutions    on    Isthmus    of    Panama, 

555-558- 
Reynolds,  James  B.,  313. 
Rhinoceros  hunting,  40,  41. 
Richards,    Laura    E.,    children's    books 

by,  20,  376. 
Rifle  practice  at  Sagamore  Hill,  36. 
Riis,  Jacob,  48,  70,  211,  313;    author's 

close    association    and    work    with, 

1S5  fT.,  218-219;    "How  the  Other 

Half  Lives"  by,  187. 
Rixey,  Surgeon-General  P.  NL,  52,  55. 
Robb,  Hamden,  73. 
Robin,  the  English,  352. 
Robinson,  Douglas,  294. 
"Robinson  Crusoe,"  reading  of,  20-21. 
Rock  Creek,  walks  down,  51,  52. 
Rock  Creek  Park,  family  excursions  to, 

365- 
Rockhill,  Ambassador,  388. 


I  Roosevelt,  Isaac,  3. 

I  Roosevelt,  Kcrmit,  40. 

'  Roosevelt,  Klacs  Martcnien  van,  I. 

R(M)8cvelt,  Martha  BulliK'h,   14. 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Thetxlore,  gift  of  silver 
vase  to,  by  iien  of  the  Louisiana, 
356. 

Roosevelt,  Robert,  15. 

R(xj8evelt,  Theodore,  father  of  author, 
8-14. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  ancestry,  I-5 ; 
birth  of,  6;  childhood,  6  tT. ;  father, 
8-14;  mother,  14-15;  relatives, 
15-16;  schooling,  17;  early  interest 
in  natural  history,  17-19,  22-24; 
reading  as  a  child,  19-22;  winter 
abroad,  23-26;  preparation  for 
college,  26-27;  course  at  Harvard, 
27-31;  exercise  and  sports,  32  ff.; 
game  shooting,  40-42;  boxing  and 
wrestling,  47-51;  exercise  while 
President,  51-54;  breaking  into  poli- 
tics. 62-64;  election  to  New  York 
Legislature,  70;  experiences  in  the 
Assembly,  70  ff . ;  defeat  for  nomina- 
tion as  Speaker,  and  beneficial  re- 
sults, 95-97;  ranch  life  on  the  Little 
Missouri,  103-143;  unsuccessful 
campaign  for  Mayoralty  of  New 
York  City,  144;  appointment  and 
work  as  Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
144  fT . ;  service  as  Police  Commis- 
sioner of  i\ew  York  City,  185-222; 
appointment  to  Assistant  Secretary- 
ship of  the  Navy,  2:4;  prepara- 
tion for  the  Spanish  War,  230  ff.; 
appointed  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the 
Rough  Riders,  238;  activities  in 
getting  regiment  to  Cuba,  249-255 ; 
the  tight  at  La  Guasima  and  Kettle 
Hill,  256-261 ;  battle  of  San  Juan 
Hill,  261-266;  round-robin  incident, 
267-269,  278-279;  letters  concern- 
ing share  in  battle  of  San  Juan  Hill, 
279-291 ;  election  and  work  as 
Governor  of  New  York,  293  ff. ; 
nomination  to  the  Vice-Presidency, 


644 


INDEX 


_  I        ,  1 1  ■    New   York    Eofnint   Pott  on 

the  1  risiuciKN,  j//.  j  exercise,  46-47. 

"'^  ;'    '^^rZ.r   ^npa  d 'cl:  KuuKiu.  CarU  paintinK  by.  35" 

creation   of   volunU-cr   uiii  ai  „„„.,„„  \V  Clevc  and.  on  comn 


Runvon.W.  Cleveland,  on  commuta  ion 

n'(  sentences  of  criminals,  4H8. 
R,iss<Hjapanesc  Wat,  .cttlcment  of  the, 

Ryan.  New  York  policeman,  199- 


mi»"»ion«.  3')'>-40J:  nomination  and 
election  to  Presidency  in  l<)04.  4^' 
4''-  work  of  conservation  and  rec- 
lamation of  nation's  natural  re- 
sources. 4l«-46';  r^-K"l^'"'"  ""J 
control  of  corporations,  ^di  n.; 
Tennessee  O.al   and   Iron  Company  S 

case,   47M«i;    work    -n   ^^J»   "[    Sawmore  Hill,  derivation  of  name,  342: 
s.K-ial    and     industrial     just.ce      --O'    ^^Kamo«-         .  ^.^^^    ^^^ 

ft. ;    services  in  conneC.on  w.th  coal  '^^*;"  '    1"       '  ^^n^es  and  object, 

strike  of  .'^f-  >°*-5'«; /-V"^;-,;"  i         f  i, nl'rest'it',   355-358;    b<x.ks  at. 
question  of  labor  unions.   ,..   5  «  ^^^  ^^i,j^^.„  ,j,   364-377. 

5:3;      views    j.garch,j.SKul.  359:3^^^.^^^  ,^,^     35,. 

5:3-527.   54>-54J;    d.thcultKs   wun  Jci^jned  by.  459-        . 

cir,--i7-      arrangement     of     Sant<i  207  213-      _ 

54'>  347.      •'"''''    .,«....    action    Sampson,  .\dmiral.  230. 

Dominv-an  trouble.  ,4«-.5>-.fl;''"    ^an  .\ntonio.  gathering-place  of  Rough 

Riders,  238.  240-  „      .  ,     .        r 

Sanclamente,     M.     A-     ?'«"!«"'     °* 

Colombia,  559-560. 
San    Juan    Hill,    battle    of.    262-266. 
letters   relative  to   authors   part  m 
battle  of.  279-29"  • 
Santiago,  the  fighting  around,  265-200; 

siege  and  surrender  of,  2W>. 
Sant..    Domingo,    settlement    of    dith- 
cultics  in.  548"552. 


in  reward  to  Colombia  and  the 
Panama  Canal,  553-57« :.  arbitra- 
tion of  Russo-Japanese  War,  5**3- 
587-  project  of  world  cruise  of 
battle  rteet,  ;92-^'05 ;  discussion 
of  the  trusts,  tlie  people,  and  thJ 
square  deal.  to6-6:o;  reply  to 
attacks  of   Woodrow    Wilson.   621- 

R«)sevelt  Dam,  d  .-dication  of  the,  434 
435 


CUltics  ill.  it"  i-}'-       _  ii-v,:,. 

.-8.  ,4-6.  364-377.    Sargent.   John   S      paintings   of   White 


R.xjsevclt  family,   .     .     -,  ^   _■  - 

Roosevelt  Museum  of  Natural  History. 

18.  24. 
Root.  Klihu.  608. 
Ross,  Professor,  quoted,  488. 
Roswell  estate,  4,  6. 
Rough  Riders,  133.  «36-i4<;    organiza 

tion   of   regiment   called.    238,   240; 


House  by,  358- 
1  Schofield,  General,  5i4-5«5- 
I  Schroeder,  Admiral.  230.  59^- 
1  Schurz,  Carl,  letter  to.  58^592- 
!  Scotch-Irish  among  Roosevelt  ancestors, 

2,4- 


-"  ..J       ,e     ,,r..    Seldus    African  hunter.  52.  375-370- 

'°",^nrX-"4;t  ;   ^=--5    IS:  WiUiam.  36.  87;  at  the  Elkhorn 
:rt'h''e!'2T8-t9;1r'iHng  of  the.  24^  ranch.  .06.  .08. 


INDEX 


64s 


of 

6; 
in 

"6; 

ffi- 
lile 


crs, 


lorn 


Shafter,  (.ineral.  153.  J54.  2^'7.  J'>*<-  ' 
Sharp,  Lieutenant-Commander,  255.  i 
Shaw,  Albert,  340.  | 

Sherman  Anti- Trutt  Law,  463,  465,  470, , 

60^19.  I 

Shields,  cowboy-ioldicr.  i/l. 
Shipp.  Lieutenant  W.  K.,  i6i.  ' 

Shootini;,  36. 
Simkhovitch.  V.   I).,  "Marxism  versus 

Socialism"  by,  ;4l-$42. 
Simpson,  "Ifashknife,"   122. 
Simpson,  Sloan,  122. 
Sims,    Federal    District    .\ttorney,   406, 

407.  i 

Sims,  Lieutenant,  232. 
Smith,  F.  Hopkinson,  sketches  of  White 

House  by,  35H. 
Smith,    Herbert    Knox,    41 1,    45^'-459. 

47>.  490. 
Snyder,  deputy  sheriff,  129. 
Social  conditions,  improvement  of,  as  a 

Government  duty,  174-175. 
Socialism,    Simkhovitch's    book   dealing 

with,  541-542-  i 

Socialist,  terming  of  author  a,  523.  1 

Socialists,  168;   discussion  and  criticism 

of  doctrines  of,  523-527. 
Spalding,  Bishop,  50c). 
Spanish  War,  unpreparcdness  of  .\merica 
for,    223-227;     preparing    the    navy 
for,  230-234;    attitude  of  people  in 
general    at    beginning   of,    234-237;, 
organization  of  Rough  Riders,  238-  I 
240;    conditions  in  Navy  and  War  j 
Departments,    240-245 ;     equipping 
the    Rough    Riders,    245-248;     cm- 
barcation    for   Cuba,    253-255;     the 
Guasimas  hght,  256^261 ;    battle  of 
San  Juan  Hill,  262-266;    capture  of 
Santiago,  266;   round-robin  incident, 
267-268,  278;    end  of   var  and  dis- 
bandment  at  Montauk  Point,  275 ; 
letters  concerning  author's  shaie  in, 
278-291. 
Spfctalur.  London,  on  world  voyage  of 

American  battle  fleet,  595. 
Sperry,  Admiral,  S9S ;    ^'^^^"  ^>>  ^'^"' 


ccrning  world  cruise  of  battle  fleet, 
5<W-602. 

Spinney,  Cieorge,  99. 

Spitzcr,  dtKk  superintendent,  485. 

Spoils  s;  item,  the,  144  ff. 

Sprague,  Henry,  73. 

Spring-Rice,  Cecil,  36. 

Square  Deal,  in  dialing  with  corpora- 
tions, 477  ff.,  606  ff. 

Stalwart   faction   of    Republican   party, 

76,  95- 
Standard  Oil  Company,  opposition  of. 
to  legislation  affecting  corporations, 

47'-  .       ^ 

Standaid  Oil  Company  suit,  469. 
Steel    Curporatitm    and    the    Tennessee 

Coal   and   Iron  Company.  47*'-4*'3. 

607-609. 
Steele,  Lieutenant,  275. 
Stelzle,  Rev.  Charles,  215. 
Sternberg,  Baron  Speck  von,  36. 
Stetson,  Francis  Lynde,  85. 
Steunenberg,  Governor,  murder  of,  527. 
Stevens,  Captain  M.  J,  282;    letter  by, 

286. 
Stewart,  Granville,  122. 
Stimson,    District   Attorney, 

486,  611. 
Stockman's    Association    of 


39".   406, 
Montana, 


122. 


Straus,  Oscar,  471,  490,  S^7- 
"Strenuous  Life,"  speech  and  volume  of 

essays  on,  58. 
"Strike"  bills,  in  New  York  Legislature, 

77-78.  81. 
Strong,  Mayor,  185,  187,  294. 
Success,  degrees  and  attainment  of,  58- 

59;   the  highest  type  of,  378. 
Suffrage,  universal,  174  ff. 
Sugar    Trust,    406;      investigation    of 

frauds  perpetrated  by.  484  ff. 
Sugar  Trust  prosecution,  466. 
Sullivan.  Big  Tim,  206-207. 
Sullivan.  Jerry  D.,  206. 
Sullivan.  John  L.,  50-51. 
Sully  Hill  Park,  460. 
Suiuacr,  General  Samuel  S.,   245,  261, 


646 


INDEX 


^e^,  .63,  .64   .6«;   letters  by.  ^^^'^;^:^^^' 

position  before  National  Uonv em       Lp^^^^^_^^.,,„„,e    conditions,    first-hand 
of  1904,  425".  struggle!        investigation  of.  2 1 8-220. 

Superintendent   of      "  """=^'    "^"?^'    i  T,„„essee  Coal  and  Iron  Company  case, 
wii*  Piatt  over,  314  3 '7-  .  .78-181  •     discussion    of    case, 

Supreme  Court,  upholding  of  executive  ,        43^.    ^^^J\^    ^.6  for  dissolving 
orders   of  author   as    President   by   |        ^It^el  Corporation,  607-609. 
393;   '^-'7Y6°"^"r%^68  "469    !  Tenant  S^^^^^^^  S^-sV',^,  ,f 

S^^e  of  „te;sitf;f  tegisl/tSn    Tests,  riding  and  walking,  for  officers. 


by,  613. 
'Swiss  Family  Robinson,"  dislike  for,  21. 


Taft,  William  H.,  removal  of  Henry 
White  by,  388;  narrowly  legalistic 
view  of  Presidency  held  by,  395; 
example  of  views  of  power  and  duties 
of  President  found  in  the  Ballinger 

case,  396-397;  uphoW'ng  °f  P°''V: 
cians  against  the  volunteer  unpaid 
commissions  by,  402 1  pardon  by,  of 
man  convicted  of  land  fraud,  406; 
removal  of  GiflFord  Pinchot  from 
headship  of   Forestry   Bureau,  429; 


54-57- 

Thayer,  Professor  James,  01. 
Third-term  views,  422-425. 
Thomas,  Admiral,  595. 
Thompson,  Hugh,  144. 
Thrush,  the  English,  351. 
Tillman,  Senator,  475. 
Torpedo  boats  in  world  voyage  of  battle 

fleet,  596-597.  ^  ^ 

Trade-unionism,  221.  5«2.  5'8tt. 
Trusts,  regulation  of,  and  square  deal 

to.  477  ff-.  606-620. 
Turner,  Senator,  384. 

U 


headship  of    forestry   nureau,  4.^^,    ^  ncle  Remus,  a  forerunner  of,  15. 

stopping  of  educational  work  of  the  |  ..^-^^^j.  -fwo  Flags,"  story  of  readmg  of, 

Forest  Service  under,  436;    attitude  j^ 

toward  the  Conservation  and  other  \  ^^-nj^.^.rsal  suffrage,  174-180. 

Commissions,    454.    455 ;     disband-  1  ^-niversitics,  gifts  to,  as  a  means  of  sub- 

ment  of  the  Fine  .\rts  Council,  459;  sidizing  heads  of  educational  bodies, 

pardoning  of  criminals  by,  487-488;         ^^^ 

acquisition   cf   Tennessee   Coal   and  V 

Iron  Company   made  a  ground  for 

di^oWing  the  Stee,  Corporation  by,  ^V  an  D^er,|ona^^        United    States 

TaiS^at  Hall,   64,   73-   74.   76,   185;!       toward,  547-54«;    Preven^-"  °;- 
alliance  of,  with  saloons  in  New  York  ^        cupation  of,  by  Germany,  55_i^  553 , 


Citv,  208-210;    tight  against  Croker 

and,   in  Governorship   campaign   of 

1898,  296. 
Target  shooting,  36,  38. 
Tawney,  Congressman,  402,  443- 
Tawney   amendment  to   Sundry   Civil 

bill,  454-4SS- 


difference  between  case  of,  and  that 
of  Colombia,  573. 
i  Vice,  measures  to  be  taken  concerning, 

215-218-  .  . 

1  Vice-Presidency,    nomination    to    tne, 

i       332-333- 

I  Virginia,  house  in,  345. 


INDEX 


647 


Volunteer  unpaid  commissions,  399- 
402;  abandoned  by  President  Tafl, 
402. 

Votes  for  women,  174-184. 

vv 


Wadsworth,  Austin,  339. 

VVainwright,  Admiral,  230,  232,  595.  602. 

Walcott,  Charles  D.,  399,  428,  432. 

Waldron,  Roosevelt  ancestor,  I. 

Wallace,  Henry,  451. 

Wall  Street,  opposition  of,  to  Spanish 
War,  228;  opposition  in  campaign 
of  1904,  421;  hostility  of,  shown  at 
time  of  Santo  Domingan  trouble, 
551.     See  also  Big  Business. 

Walsh,  banker,  case  of,  406.  407. 

War,  necessity  of  preparation  for,  223- 

226,  575-58I- 
Waring,  George  F.,  185. 
Washburn,  Stanley,  biography  of  General 

Nogi  by,  245. 
Water   power,    control   of,    by    private 

•r.uerests,  457. 
Water-power  policy  established  by  Forest 

Service,  442-443. 
Watson,  Thomas,  451. 
VV'eismann,  Henry,  221. 
Welch,  Thomas,  73. 
Western  Federation  of  Miners,  troubles 

concerning.  408-411,  527-532. 
Weston,  General,  248. 
West  Point  officers,  242. 
VVeyl,  Walter, "  New  Democracy  "  by,  30. 
Wheeler,  General  Joseph,  260,  261,  265, 

281. 
Whipping    advocated    for    men    white 

slavers,  216. 
Whisky,  on  hunting  trips,  43. 
White,  Chief  Justice,  quoted,  468. 
White,  Henry,  388,  587. 
White,  Stewart  Edward,  excellence  as  a 

shot,  36. 
White  slave  traffic,  216,  407-408. 
Wichita  Game  Preserves,  460. 
Widener,  Squire  Bill,  quoted,  365. 


I  Wilcox,  Ansley,  379. 
Wild   life,   measures   for  protection  of, 

459-461. 
Wilgus,  Horace  L.,  paper  by,  619. 
Willis,  John,  127. 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  the  "New  Freedom" 
of,  462;  pardoning  of  criminals  by, 
487-488;  reply  to  attacks  on  author 
contained  in  the  "New  Freedom," 
62 1-630. 

Wind  Cave  Park,  460. 

Winslow,  Cameron,  230,  358. 

Wise,  .Assistant  District-Attorney,  406, 
486. 

Wister,  Owen,  103,  133. 

Wolverton,  Judge,  391,  393- 

Woman's  suffrage,  176-184. 

Wood,  J.  G.,  natural  history  books  by,  21. 

Wood,  Leonard,  48,  52,  54,  254  ff.,  267, 
281,  285,  368;  superlative  qualities 
of,  237;  appointed  colonel  of  First 
United  States  Volunteer  Cavalry 
(Rough  Riders),  238;  gift  for  or- 
ganization, 248;  wins  brigadier- 
generalship,  266;  work  as  Governor 
of  Cuba,  545. 

Woodruff,  George,  441. 

Woodruff,  Timothy  L.,  293,  308,  333. 

Woody,  Tazewell,  127. 

Wrestling  as  an  exercise,  47. 

Wright,  Carroll  D.,  506,  509.  S34- 

Wynne,  Robert  J.,  403. 


Yellowstone  Park,  visit  to,  with  John 

Burroughs,  346-347. 
Yosemite,  visit  to  the,  with  John  Muir, 

347-349-  ^      ^ 

Young.  General  S.  B.  M.,  243,  256,  261, 

281,  563-  .    . 

Young     Men's     Christian     Association, 

boxing  recommended  for,  49. 
Youngs,  William  J.,  326. 


Zoology,  first  steps  in,  17-18. 


Printnl  in  the  United  Sutes  of  America. 


